🔗 Share this article Discover the Weekend League Club Featuring 1,800 English Top Division Matches The bench for Wythenshawe Veterans in a 6-2 triumph against their opponents on October 19th (from left to right) - Oumar Niasse, another, Marcel Edwards, Blake Norton, Maynor Figueroa, Dean Warburton and Emile Heskey How do you enhance a outstanding experienced squad that have claimed consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double with thirty wins from 32 matches? Bring in a collection of former professionals that have competed at the elite level of club and global soccer as you target additional honors. A Manchester side has an non-professional veterans team with nine former Premier League players in their present squad. Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, 325 Global Caps The team Vets Over-35s are based in south the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Premier Division. The lineup this campaign boasts 9 ex- Premier League footballers, with a total 1,801 Premier League games. This star-studded squad also contains over 220 top division scores and over 320 international appearances. The squad feature one forward, who notched 37 goals in over 100 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga club Freiburg in January 2012. He had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home-field match versus defending champions their rivals and scored every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - including a half-hour first-half triple. Wythenshawe's roster for this campaign also includes ex- pros such as England and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater. Together, the ex- top-flight players have secured 15 significant honors and transferred for total transfer fees of around £123m. Well-Known Figures and Global Players He earned 6 Republic of Ireland caps, scoring 4 scores Ireland began turning out for the team during pre-season this season through close friend and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly small-sided game, to participate. Former Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve goals in 65 Premier League games for the Toffees and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform. Oumar Niasse featured for Everton from 2016 and 2020 "My friend Stephen said 'join and play, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse. "After that he told me we were playing a side from the city and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Everton kits - I thought this is strange for me! "When you still enjoy football and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to do? "Those people who turn up and see are pleased and to make a moment if they see us playing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the joy of us having a place we can enjoy football, with organisation of course." So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his first game at full-back. "That's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy running and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said. "I tell my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running. "The running is what I'm seeking. It's enjoyable." Ex- Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa is playing for the team Dreamlike' Scenario In addition to Cisse's six goals on debut, Ireland has scored eight in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a hat-trick in one match as a striker. Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Tier with 3 victories from 3 and a goal difference of +19. Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Wigan full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was. He has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in addition to featuring in more than two hundred top-flight matches. "The news was going round like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League players," said the player. "I felt I was a bit starstruck facing him to be honest. "Also Heskey came on and he's has over 60 English caps. "Our side competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough. "Our group literally haven't stopped talking about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the way home. "They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of regular fellas. "Now we can't wait for the second fixture." 'We'll Still Win the League' Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Premier Division championship last season, together with his co-manager. "Our team went 1-0 ahead and had a