🔗 Share this article

How can you enhance a outstanding experienced side who have secured consecutive titles, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 victories from thirty-two matches?

Bring in a group of former pro players that have performed at the top level of club and international football as you target more trophies.

One Manchester team has an non-professional veterans squad with 9 former Premier League players in their present lineup.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances

Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are located in south the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Premier Tier.

Their lineup this campaign boasts 9 former Premier League footballers, with a total 1,801 top-flight games.

This high-profile squad also includes over 220 top division goals and over 320 global appearances.

They include one forward, who netted 37 goals in 117 games for his former club after joining them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

He had his debut for the team in their last home match versus reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six scores in a six-two win - featuring a half-hour first-half hat-trick.

The team for this campaign also features ex- pros such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the ex- Premier League players have secured fifteen significant trophies and transferred for combined transfer sums of about £123m.

Household Figures and Global Players

Stephen Ireland began turning out for the side during preseason this season through close friend and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then asked additional former professionals, who all play in a weekly small-sided match, to participate.

Ex- Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted twelve scores in sixty-five Premier League games for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and use an Everton training kit as their uniform.

"My friend Stephen Ireland told me 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said the striker.

"After that he told 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 wrong for me!

"When you still love the game and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?

"Those people who turn up and watch are pleased and to give someone's moment if they watch us competing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."

So great is the strength in depth at the club, he had his debut at defender.

"That's a little unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he added.

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

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

Unreal Experience

Along with Cisse's six goals on debut, Ireland has scored 8 in three appearances for the side, while Boyd scored 5 on his first appearance and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a triple in one match as a striker.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Division with 3 victories from three and a goal difference of +19.

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young boy who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as playing in over 200 Premier League matches.

"It was going round like a rumor they had all these former top-flight players," said the player.

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

"Even Heskey got on and he's got 60-odd English caps.

"We competed well for a good 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.

"We really haven't ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home.

"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of normal guys.

"Now we are eager for the second fixture."

'We'll Still Take the Title'

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

"We went one-nil up and had a