🔗 Share this article

How do you boost a excellent veteran team that have won consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting thirty victories from thirty-two games?

Bring in a group of former pro players who have played at the highest tier of club football and global soccer as you target additional trophies.

A Greater Manchester team fields an non-professional veterans team with 9 ex- top-flight footballers in their present squad.

222 Top Division Goals, 325 Global Appearances

Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are based in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Premier Tier.

The lineup this season features nine former top-flight footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 Premier League matches.

The star-studded team also includes over 220 Premier League goals and 325 global appearances.

They include one forward, who scored 37 goals in 117 games for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.

He had his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field match against reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half triple.

The squad for this campaign also includes former professionals such as England and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the ex- top-flight players have claimed fifteen major honors and transferred for combined transfer sums of approximately £123 million.

Well-Known Names and International Players

Ireland started playing for the team during preseason this season through good mate and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited additional former professionals, who all compete in a weekly small-sided match, to participate.

Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 Premier League matches for Everton and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their strip.

"A friend Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented Niasse.

"Then he informed me we were facing 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 do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?

"Those spectators who turn up and see are pleased and to make a day if they watch us playing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the joy of us getting a place we can play, with structure of course."

So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his debut at full-back.

"It's a little unusual but then, I love sprinting and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue running.

"The movement is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."

'Surreal Experience

In addition to Cisse's six scores on his first game, Ireland has scored eight in three games for the side, while Boyd hit 5 on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a triple in one match as a striker.

The team are leading of the Top Tier with three wins from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at two World Cups for Honduras, in as well as featuring in more than two hundred top-flight matches.

"It was going round like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League stars," said Barrow.

"I think I was a little starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.

"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has 60-odd English caps.

"We held our own for a solid 20 mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.

"Our group really have not stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and sibling on the way home.

"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a bunch of normal fellas.

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

'We'll Still Win the League'

Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate vets side, who won the Premier Division title last season, along with his co-manager.

"Our team scored 1-0 ahead and had a