🔗 Share this article

How do you improve a excellent experienced team who have won consecutive titles, including a double triumph boasting thirty wins from thirty-two matches?

Sign a collection of former professionals who have competed at the elite level of club football and global soccer as you pursue further silverware.

One Manchester team boasts an amateur vets team with 9 ex- top-flight footballers in their present lineup.

222 Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances

Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are situated in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Premier Division.

Their lineup this season boasts 9 ex- top-flight footballers, with a combined 1,801 Premier League matches.

The elite squad also boasts 222 top division scores and over 320 global appearances.

The squad include one forward, who netted 37 scores in 117 games for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.

He made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home-field match against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six goals in a six-two victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.

The roster for this season also features ex- professionals such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the ex- top-flight players have claimed 15 major trophies and transferred for total transfer sums of about £123m.

Famous Names and International Stars

Ireland started turning out for the side in preseason this season through good mate and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked additional former professionals, who all compete in a weekly small-sided game, to participate.

Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 scores in 65 top-flight matches for the Toffees and still goes to their home games, also had his debut against Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and use an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.

"A friend Stephen Ireland said 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," commented the striker.

"After that he informed me we were playing a team from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Blue kits - I say this is strange for me!

"If you still love football and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?

"The spectators who turn up and see are happy and to give someone's day if they see us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."

Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his debut at defender.

"It's a little unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go inside - 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 enjoyable."

'Surreal Experience

Along with Cisse's 6 goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Division with three wins from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.

He has appeared at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in over two hundred top-flight games.

"The news was going round like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League stars," remarked the player.

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

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

"Our side competed well for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.

"Our group literally haven't ceased talking about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the way home.

"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of normal guys.

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

We Will Still Take the League'

Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans side, who secured the Top Tier championship the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.

"We scored 1-0 up and had a