🔗 Share this article

What do you enhance a stellar veteran team who have secured consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double with 30 wins from 32 games?

Recruit a collection of ex- professionals who have competed at the highest level of club football and global soccer as you aim for more silverware.

A Greater Manchester side fields an amateur vets team with 9 former top-flight footballers in their active lineup.

222 Premier League Goals, 325 Global Caps

The team Vets Over 35s are situated in south the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Top Division.

The lineup this season features nine former Premier League footballers, with a total over 1,800 elite appearances.

This high-profile squad also includes over 220 top division scores and 325 global appearances.

They include one forward, who notched thirty-seven goals in 117 games for his former club after joining them for £9m from German league side Freiburg in 2012.

He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home game versus defending title holders their rivals and netted all six goals in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.

The roster for this campaign also includes ex- professionals such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the ex- top-flight footballers have claimed fifteen big trophies and moved for total transfer sums of around £123 million.

Famous Figures and International Players

Ireland started playing for the side during preseason this season through good friend and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to participate.

Former Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 scores in sixty-five Premier League matches for Everton and still goes to their home games, also had his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"My friend Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's a laugh'," commented the striker.

"After that he told me we were facing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Everton shirts - I thought this is strange for me!

"If you still love football and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?

"The spectators who come and see are happy and to give a day if they watch us playing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

So great is the squad depth at the club, Niasse made his first game at defender.

"That's a little unusual but then, I love sprinting and just go forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.

"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.

"The running is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."

Unreal Experience

Along with the forward's 6 scores on debut, Ireland has scored eight in three appearances for the side, while Boyd scored five on his first match and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a hat-trick in one match as a striker.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Division with three wins from 3 and a GD of +19.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, faced former Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for his country, in addition to featuring in more than 200 Premier League matches.

"It was spreading like wildfire they had all these former top-flight players," said the player.

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

"Also Heskey came on and he's got 60-odd England caps.

"We competed well for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.

"We literally haven't stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mum and sibling on the journey home.

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

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

We Will Still Win the League'

Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate vets team, who secured the Top Division title the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.

"Our team scored one-nil up and had a