🔗 Share this article

How can you boost a excellent experienced team who have claimed consecutive championships, including a league-cup double boasting thirty victories from 32 games?

Sign a collection of ex- professionals who have played at the highest level of club and global soccer as you target further trophies.

One Manchester side has an non-professional veterans team with nine ex- top-flight players in their current lineup.

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

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

Their lineup this season includes 9 ex- top-flight footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 top-flight appearances.

This elite roster also includes 222 top division scores and over 320 global appearances.

They feature one forward, who scored thirty-seven scores in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from German league side Freiburg in 2012.

He had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home game against defending title holders their rivals and scored 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 former pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the former Premier League footballers have secured fifteen major honors and moved for total transfer fees of approximately £123m.

Household Names and International Stars

Ireland began turning out for the team during pre-season this summer through good mate and present team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then invited additional ex-pros, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side game, to participate.

Ex- Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted twelve goals in 65 top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.

"My friend Stephen told me 'come and play, it's a laugh'," commented Niasse.

"Then he told me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Everton kits - I say this is strange for me!

"When you still love football and you feel you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?

"Those fans who come and see are pleased and to make someone's moment if they watch us competing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the joy of us getting a place we can play, with structure of course."

Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his first game at full-back.

"It's a little different but then, I enjoy running and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

"I tell my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.

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

'Surreal Feeling

In addition to the forward's six scores on debut, Ireland has netted 8 in 3 appearances for the side, while George Boyd hit five on his first appearance and Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a hat-trick in one game up front.

The team are leading of the Top Division with three wins from three and a GD of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at two global tournaments for his country, in as well as featuring in more than two hundred top-flight matches.

"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these former top-flight stars," said Barrow.

"I felt I was a little starstruck playing against him to be honest.

"Even Heskey came on and he's got over 60 English caps.

"Our side held our own for a solid twenty minutes but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.

"We literally have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the way home.

"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of regular fellas.

"Now we are eager for the return fixture."

'We'll Still Win the League'

The manager manages the Collegiate veterans side, who won the Top Tier championship last season, along with his co-manager.

"We scored 1-0 up and had a