🔗 Share this article

How can you improve a outstanding veteran side that have secured back-to-back championships, including a league-cup double boasting thirty wins from thirty-two games?

Bring in a raft of former pro players who have performed at the top tier of club football and international football as you target more trophies.

One Manchester team has an non-professional veterans squad with nine ex- Premier League players in their present squad.

222 Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Appearances

Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are located in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Premier Tier.

The roster this season includes nine former top-flight footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 Premier League matches.

This elite squad also contains over 220 Premier League goals and over 320 global appearances.

The squad include one forward, who scored 37 scores in over 100 games for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.

He had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home match against reigning champions their rivals and netted every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - featuring a half-hour first-half triple.

The roster for this season also features former professionals such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the former Premier League footballers have won fifteen big honors and transferred for total transfer sums of around £123m.

Well-Known Figures and Global Stars

Stephen Ireland began playing for the team during preseason this summer through good mate and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then invited additional ex-pros, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side game, to join in.

Former Senegal striker Niasse, who scored twelve goals in sixty-five Premier League matches for Everton and even now goes to their home games, also had his first appearance versus the opposition - who are located in the city and wear an Everton training kit as their strip.

"My mate Stephen Ireland told me 'join and play, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.

"Then he told me we were facing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Blue shirts - I say this is strange for me!

"If you still love football and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?

"The spectators who come and see are pleased and to make a day if they watch us competing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the joy of us having a place we can play, with organisation of course."

Such is the strength in depth at the club, Niasse had his first game at defender.

"It's a bit unusual but then, I love sprinting and just go forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.

"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.

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

Unreal Scenario

Along with the forward's 6 goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a triple in one game as a striker.

Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Tier with three wins from three and a GD of +19.

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against former Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to playing in over two hundred Premier League matches.

"The news was going round like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League stars," said Barrow.

"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 solid 20 mins but then we had a player sent off and it was tough.

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

"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of regular guys.

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

'We'll Still Win the Title'

The manager coaches the Collegiate vets side, who secured the Top Division title last season, together with Paul Maguire.

"Our team scored one-nil ahead and had a