🔗 Share this article

What can you improve a stellar experienced side that have won consecutive championships, including a league-cup double boasting 30 wins from thirty-two matches?

Bring in a raft of former professionals that have competed at the elite level of club football and global soccer as you target more silverware.

One Manchester side fields an amateur veterans team with nine former top-flight footballers in their active lineup.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, 325 International Caps

Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are situated in south the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets League Top Division.

Their lineup this season boasts 9 ex- Premier League players, with a total nearly 1,800 elite games.

The elite roster also contains over 220 Premier League scores and over 320 international caps.

They include one forward, who netted thirty-seven scores in over 100 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side Freiburg in January 2012.

He had his debut for the team in their last home game versus defending title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - featuring a half-hour first-half triple.

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

Collectively, the ex- Premier League players have claimed fifteen significant trophies and transferred for total transfer sums of around £123m.

Household Figures and International Players

Ireland started turning out for the side in preseason this season through good friend and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side game, to join in.

Former Senegal striker Niasse, who netted 12 scores in 65 Premier League matches for the Toffees and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut versus the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.

"A friend Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," commented Niasse.

"Then he told me we were facing a team from the city and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Blue shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!

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

"Those people who turn up and watch are pleased and to make someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he made his first game at defender.

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

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

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

Unreal Scenario

Along with the forward's six goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored 5 on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a triple in one game up front.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Division with 3 victories from three and a GD of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Latics defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young son who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as featuring in over two hundred Premier League games.

"It was spreading like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League players," remarked the player.

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

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

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

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

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

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

'We'll Still Take the League'

The manager manages the opposition veterans team, who secured the Premier Tier title the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.

"We went 1-0 ahead and had a