🔗 Share this article

How can you improve a stellar veteran squad who have secured consecutive titles, featuring a double triumph with thirty wins from 32 matches?

Bring in a collection of ex- pro players that have competed at the elite level of club and global football as you target additional trophies.

A Manchester club fields an amateur vets team with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their current squad.

222 Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps

Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are situated in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Veterans Division Premier Division.

Their lineup this season includes 9 former top-flight footballers, with a total over 1,800 elite appearances.

This high-profile roster also contains over 220 top division goals and 325 global caps.

The squad include one forward, who scored 37 goals in 117 appearances for his former club after joining them for nine million pounds from German league club Freiburg in 2012.

He made his first appearance for the team in their last home game against reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - including a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.

The roster for this season also features ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former Premier League players have claimed 15 major honors and transferred for total transfer fees of approximately £123m.

Well-Known Names and Global Stars

Ireland began turning out for the side during preseason this summer through good mate and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked other ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek small-sided match, to participate.

Former Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve scores in 65 Premier League games for Everton and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance versus the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"A mate Stephen told me 'come and play, it's a laugh'," said Niasse.

"After that he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Blue kits - I thought this is wrong for me!

"If you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?

"The fans who come and see are happy and to give someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us questions - it's really about the joy of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."

Such is the squad depth at the club, Niasse had his first game at full-back.

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

"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.

"That running is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."

Unreal Feeling

In addition to Cisse's six scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored five on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a hat-trick in one game as a striker.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Tier with three victories from three and a goal difference of +19.

Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the wing for the opposition, came up against ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in more than two hundred Premier League matches.

"It was spreading like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League players," said the player.

"I felt I was a little starstruck facing him to be honest.

"Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's got over 60 England appearances.

"Our side held our own for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.

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

"They were all dead sound, 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 Take the Title'

The manager coaches the Collegiate vets side, who secured the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.

"We scored 1-0 ahead and had a