🔗 Share this article

How can you boost a stellar experienced side that have won back-to-back titles, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 victories from thirty-two games?

Recruit a group of ex- pro players that have played at the highest tier of club football and global soccer as you pursue additional silverware.

A Manchester team has an amateur veterans squad with nine ex- Premier League players in their active squad.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 Global Caps

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

Their roster this campaign includes nine ex- top-flight players, with a combined 1,801 elite matches.

This star-studded roster also contains 222 top division scores and over 320 international appearances.

They feature one forward, who notched 37 goals in 117 games for his former club after moving to them for £9m from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.

He had his debut for the team in their most recent home-field game versus defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six scores in a six-two win - featuring a 32-minute first-half triple.

The roster for this campaign also features ex- professionals such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the ex- Premier League players have claimed fifteen major trophies and moved for combined transfer sums of about £123 million.

Household Figures and International Stars

Ireland began turning out for the side during preseason this season through close friend and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked additional ex-pros, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side match, to join in.

Ex- Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 goals in sixty-five Premier League matches 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 Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.

"My friend Stephen Ireland told me 'come and play, it's good fun'," said the striker.

"Then he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Blue kits - I say this is wrong for me!

"If you still enjoy football and you know you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?

"The people who turn up and see are pleased and to give a moment if they watch us competing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

So great is the squad depth at the club, Niasse had his first game at full-back.

"That's a little unusual but then, I love running and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.

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

"The movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."

Unreal Experience

In addition to the forward's 6 scores on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in three games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored five on his debut match and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Tier with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of +19.

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the wing for the opposition, came up against former Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young boy who Heskey was.

He has played at two World Cups for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than two hundred top-flight games.

"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League stars," remarked Barrow.

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

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

"Our side competed well for a solid twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.

"Our group really haven't stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the way home.

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

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

'We'll Still Win the Title'

Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate vets side, who secured the Premier Tier title the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.

"We scored one-nil ahead and had a