🔗 Share this article

What do you improve a excellent veteran squad who have secured back-to-back titles, including a double triumph boasting thirty victories from thirty-two matches?

Recruit a raft of former professionals that have performed at the elite level of club football and international soccer as you target further trophies.

One Greater Manchester team boasts an non-professional veterans team with 9 former Premier League footballers in their current roster.

222 Top Division Goals, 325 Global Caps

Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are located in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Vets League Premier Division.

Their squad list this season boasts nine ex- Premier League footballers, with a collective nearly 1,800 top-flight games.

The elite roster also contains 222 Premier League scores and 325 global caps.

They include one forward, who scored 37 goals in over 100 appearances for his former club after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in January 2012.

He made his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match versus defending title holders their rivals and scored every one of the six goals in a 6-2 win - including a half-hour first-half triple.

The team for this season also includes ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former Premier League players have claimed 15 significant honors and moved for total transfer fees of around £123m.

Famous Names and Global Stars

Stephen Ireland began playing for the team during preseason this season through close friend and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited additional former professionals, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side match, to participate.

Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve scores in 65 top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now attends their home games, also had his debut against the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"My friend Stephen said 'join and play, it's good fun'," said Niasse.

"After that he told me we were playing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Blue kits - I say this is strange for me!

"When you still love the game and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?

"The people who turn up and see are happy and to make someone's moment if they watch us competing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the joy of us having a place we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

Such is the bench strength at the club, he made his first game at full-back.

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

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

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

Dreamlike' Scenario

In addition to Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Ireland has scored 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a triple in one game up front.

The team are top of the Premier Tier with three wins from three and a GD of +19.

One opponent, 38, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.

He has appeared at two global tournaments for his country, in as well as playing in over two hundred Premier League games.

"It was going round like a rumor they had these former top-flight stars," remarked Barrow.

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

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

"Our side held our own for a good 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.

"We literally haven't ceased talking about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the way home.

"The opponents were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of normal guys.

"Now we are eager for the return match."

'We'll Still Win the League'

The manager manages the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Premier Tier title the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.

"Our team went one-nil ahead and had a