🔗 Share this article

How do you boost a stellar veteran team who have won back-to-back titles, featuring a double triumph with thirty victories from thirty-two games?

Sign a raft of ex- professionals who have performed at the highest tier of club and international football as you target further honors.

A Manchester club has an non-professional vets squad with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their active roster.

222 Top Division Goals, 325 International Appearances

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

The roster this season features 9 ex- Premier League players, with a combined 1,801 Premier League appearances.

The elite roster also boasts 222 top division scores and over 320 global caps.

They include one forward, who netted 37 goals in 117 appearances for his former club after moving to them for £9m from German league side SC Freiburg in January 2012.

He made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home-field game against defending champions their rivals and netted every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half triple.

Wythenshawe's team for this campaign also includes ex- pros such as England and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the former Premier League players have claimed 15 major trophies and transferred for combined transfer fees of around £123m.

Famous Figures and Global Stars

Stephen Ireland began turning out for the side during preseason this season through close mate and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then asked additional ex-pros, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side match, to participate.

Former Senegalese striker Niasse, who scored twelve goals in sixty-five top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut versus the opposition - who are located in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"A friend Stephen Ireland told me 'join and have a game, it's good fun'," said the striker.

"Then he told me we were playing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Everton shirts - I thought this is strange for me!

"If 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?

"The spectators who turn up and see are happy and to give someone's moment if they see us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

So great is the strength in depth at the club, Niasse had his debut at full-back.

"It's a little unusual but then, I love sprinting and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said.

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

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

'Surreal Feeling

In addition to Cisse's 6 goals on debut, Ireland has scored eight in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his debut match and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one match up front.

Wythenshawe are top of the Top Division with 3 victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the wing for the opposition, came up against ex- Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young boy who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at two World Cups for his country, in addition to playing in over two hundred top-flight games.

"It was spreading like wildfire they had all these former top-flight players," said the player.

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

"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got 60-odd England appearances.

"We held our own for a solid twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.

"We literally have not ceased talking about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the journey home.

"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of normal fellas.

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

'We'll Still Take the Title'

Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans team, who secured the Top Division championship last season, along with his co-manager.

"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a