🔗 Share this article

What can you boost a outstanding experienced team that have secured consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph boasting thirty victories from 32 games?

Sign a raft of ex- pro players who have competed at the top level of club and international football as you aim for more trophies.

A Greater Manchester club has an amateur veterans team with nine former top-flight players in their current squad.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, 325 International Appearances

Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are located in southern the city and play in the Cheshire Veterans Division Top Tier.

Their roster this season features 9 ex- top-flight footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 Premier League appearances.

The elite roster also boasts 222 top division goals and 325 international caps.

They feature one forward, who notched 37 goals in 117 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

He made his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home-field match versus defending champions their rivals and netted all six scores in a six-two win - featuring a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.

The roster for this campaign also includes ex- pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the ex- top-flight players have won fifteen significant trophies and moved for total transfer sums of around £123m.

Household Figures and Global Stars

Ireland started turning out for the side during preseason this summer through good friend and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to join in.

Former Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve goals in 65 Premier League matches for Everton and even now goes to their home games, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and use an Blue training kit as their uniform.

"My mate Stephen told me 'join and play, it's a laugh'," said Niasse.

"After that he told me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I say this is wrong for me!

"When you still enjoy the game and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?

"Those fans who come and watch are happy and to give someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the joy of us having a place we can play, with organisation of course."

So great is the strength in depth at the club, Niasse made his first game at defender.

"It's a little different but then, I love sprinting and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.

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

Dreamlike' Scenario

Along with the forward's six scores on debut, Ireland has scored 8 in 3 appearances for the side, while Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a hat-trick in one game up front.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Division with three wins from 3 and a goal difference of +19.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for the opposition, faced ex- Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at 2 global tournaments for his country, in addition to playing in more than two hundred top-flight games.

"It was spreading like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League players," said Barrow.

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

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

"Our side competed well for a good 20 mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.

"We literally haven't ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the journey home.

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

"Now we are eager for the second match."

We Will Still Take the League'

The manager coaches the Collegiate vets side, who secured the Top Tier title the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.

"Our team scored 1-0 ahead and had a