Meet this Weekend League Team With Over 1,800 English Top Division Matches

Wythenshawe Vets bench during a match
This bench for the team Veterans in a six-two win versus Collegiate Old Boys on 19 October (left to right) - one player, another, a teammate, Blake Norton, Maynor Figueroa, Dean Warburton and Emile Heskey

How can you enhance a stellar experienced team that have won consecutive titles, including a league-cup double boasting thirty wins from 32 matches?

Sign a raft of former professionals that have performed at the top tier of club football and international soccer as you target further honors.

One Manchester team boasts an amateur vets squad with 9 former Premier League footballers in their active lineup.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps

The team Vets Over-35s are situated in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Premier Division.

Their squad list this season boasts nine ex- top-flight footballers, with a collective 1,801 Premier League matches.

This elite roster also includes 222 Premier League scores and over 320 global caps.

The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 scores in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse made his first appearance for the team in their most recent home-field game against defending title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six goals in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.

The roster for this campaign also features ex- pros such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former top-flight players have won fifteen major trophies and transferred for total transfer sums of about £123m.

Well-Known Figures and Global Stars

Stephen Ireland in action
He won six Irish appearances, scoring 4 goals

Ireland began turning out for the team during pre-season this summer through good mate and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked additional ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side match, to participate.

Former Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve goals in sixty-five Premier League matches for Everton and even now goes to their home games, also had his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton training kit as their uniform.

Oumar Niasse playing for Everton
Oumar Niasse featured for Everton from 2016 and 2020

"A mate Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's a laugh'," said the striker.

"After that he told me we were facing a side from the city and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Blue kits - I thought this is wrong for me!

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

"Those spectators who turn up and watch are pleased and to give a moment if they see us competing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can play, with organisation of course."

Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at defender.

"That's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy running and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

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

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

Maynor Figueroa in action
Ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa is playing for the team

Unreal Experience

Along with the forward's six goals on debut, Ireland has netted eight in 3 games for the side, while Boyd hit five on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a triple in one match up front.

The team are leading of the Top Tier with three wins from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.

One opponent, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against former Wigan full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in addition to playing in more than 200 top-flight games.

"It was spreading like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League stars," said Barrow.

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

"Even Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd England appearances.

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

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

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

"Now we are eager for the return fixture."

We Will Still Win the League'

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

"Our team scored one-nil ahead and had a

Allison Kirby
Allison Kirby

A passionate retro tech collector and writer, sharing discoveries and stories from the golden age of gaming and computing.