🔗 Share this article

How do you improve a outstanding veteran side who have secured consecutive titles, featuring a double triumph boasting thirty wins from 32 games?

Sign a collection of former professionals who have played at the elite level of club and international football as you target more trophies.

One Manchester team fields an amateur veterans squad with nine former Premier League footballers in their active squad.

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

The team Veterans Over-35s are located in south the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Premier Tier.

The lineup this season features 9 ex- top-flight footballers, with a collective over 1,800 top-flight appearances.

The high-profile squad also boasts over 220 Premier League goals and 325 international appearances.

They include one forward, who netted 37 scores in over 100 games for his former club after signing for them for nine million pounds from German league club Freiburg in 2012.

He made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match against reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - featuring a half-hour first-half hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's squad for this season also includes former pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former top-flight players have claimed 15 significant honors and moved for combined transfer fees of about £123 million.

Household Names and Global Stars

Ireland began turning out for the side in preseason this summer through good mate and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then invited additional former professionals, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side match, to participate.

Former Senegal striker Niasse, who netted 12 goals in 65 top-flight matches for Everton and even now attends their home games, also had his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.

"A friend Stephen told me 'join and play, it's good fun'," commented the striker.

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

"When you still love the game and you feel you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?

"Those spectators who turn up and see are pleased and to give a day if they watch us competing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can play, with structure of course."

Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he made his debut at full-back.

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

"I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.

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

Unreal Scenario

In addition to the forward's six scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in three appearances for the side, while George Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a hat-trick in one match up front.

Wythenshawe are top of the Top Division with 3 victories from three and a goal difference of +19.

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

He has appeared at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in addition to featuring in over two hundred top-flight matches.

"The news was spreading like a rumor they had these former top-flight stars," said the player.

"I felt I was a little starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.

"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's got over 60 English caps.

"Our side competed well for a good 20 minutes but then we had a player sent off and it was tough.

"We really haven't ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and sibling on the journey home.

"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of regular fellas.

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

We Will Still Take the League'

Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans side, who secured the Premier Tier title the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.

"Our team went one-nil ahead and had a