🔗 Share this article

What do you enhance a excellent experienced team that have won back-to-back titles, including a double triumph boasting 30 victories from thirty-two games?

Recruit a raft of former pro players that have competed at the elite level of club football and global soccer as you pursue further trophies.

One Manchester team fields an non-professional vets squad with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their present lineup.

222 Top Division Goals, 325 International Caps

Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are situated in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Veterans Division Top Tier.

The lineup this campaign features nine former top-flight footballers, with a collective over 1,800 Premier League games.

The star-studded squad also includes over 220 top division goals and over 320 global appearances.

They feature one forward, who netted 37 scores in over 100 games for his former club after signing for them for £9m from German league club SC Freiburg in 2012.

He made his debut for the team in their last home-field game against reigning champions their rivals and scored all six goals in a six-two victory - featuring a half-hour opening period triple.

The team for this season also includes ex- pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the ex- top-flight players have won fifteen big trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of approximately £123m.

Famous Figures and International Players

Stephen Ireland began turning out for the side during preseason this season through good mate and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then invited additional ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.

Former Senegalese forward Niasse, who netted twelve scores in sixty-five top-flight games for Everton and even now goes to their home games, also had his first appearance versus the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"My mate Stephen Ireland told me 'join and play, it's enjoyable'," commented Niasse.

"Then he informed me we were playing a side from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Blue kits - I thought this is strange for me!

"If you still love football and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?

"Those fans who turn up and see are happy and to give a day if they watch us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can play, with structure of course."

So great is the strength in depth at the club, Niasse made his first game at full-back.

"That's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.

"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.

"That movement is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."

'Surreal Feeling

Along with Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored 5 on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a triple in one match as a striker.

Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Tier with 3 victories from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced former Latics full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.

He has played at two World Cups for Honduras, in as well as playing in more than 200 Premier League matches.

"It was going round like a rumor they had these former top-flight stars," said Barrow.

"I think I was a bit starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.

"Also Heskey got on and he's got 60-odd English appearances.

"We held our own for a good twenty mins but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.

"Our group literally haven't stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the journey home.

"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of regular guys.

"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."

'We'll Still Win the League'

The manager coaches the Collegiate vets side, who secured the Top Tier title last season, together with Paul Maguire.

"Our team scored one-nil up and had a