🔗 Share this article

What can you enhance a outstanding experienced squad who have won consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double with thirty victories from thirty-two games?

Recruit a raft of ex- pro players who have played at the elite level of club and global soccer as you pursue more honors.

A Manchester team boasts an amateur vets squad with nine ex- top-flight players in their active roster.

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

The team Veterans Over-35s are based in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Top Division.

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

This star-studded team also includes over 220 Premier League scores and over 320 global caps.

They include one forward, who netted thirty-seven goals in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home game versus defending title holders their rivals and netted every one of the six goals in a six-two victory - including a half-hour first-half triple.

The team for this season also features former pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the former top-flight footballers have secured 15 significant honors and transferred for combined transfer sums of around £123m.

Household Names and Global Stars

Ireland began turning out for the team during preseason this summer through good mate and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked additional ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side game, to join in.

Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve scores in sixty-five top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now attends their home games, also made his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.

"A friend Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's a laugh'," said Niasse.

"Then he informed me we were facing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting 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 do?

"Those fans who turn up and see are pleased and to make a moment if they watch us competing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the joy of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."

So great is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he made his first game at defender.

"That's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.

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

"That running is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."

Dreamlike' Experience

Along with the forward's six goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in three appearances for the side, while Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one game up front.

The team are top of the Top Tier with 3 victories from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against former Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young son who Heskey was.

He has played at two World Cups for Honduras, in as well as playing in more than 200 top-flight matches.

"It was going round like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League stars," remarked the player.

"I think I was a bit starstruck facing him to be honest.

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

"Our side held our own for a good 20 mins but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.

"Our group literally have not stopped talking about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the journey home.

"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of regular guys.

"Now we are eager for the return match."

'We'll Still Take the League'

Andy Kirby coaches the opposition veterans side, who secured the Top Division title last season, along with Paul Maguire.

"We scored 1-0 ahead and had a