Meet the Weekend League Team Featuring Over 1,800 Top-Flight Games

Wythenshawe Vets bench during a match
This bench for Wythenshawe Vets in a 6-2 victory versus Collegiate Old Boys on October 19th (from left to right) - one player, another, Marcel Edwards, Blake Norton, Maynor Figueroa, Dean Warburton and Emile Heskey

How can you boost a stellar veteran side who have claimed consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph with 30 wins from thirty-two games?

Bring in a group of former pro players that have played at the top level of club football and international soccer as you aim for more honors.

A Greater Manchester team has an non-professional veterans squad with 9 former Premier League footballers in their current squad.

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

The team Vets Over-35s are located in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire Veterans League Premier Division.

The squad list this season includes 9 former top-flight footballers, with a collective 1,801 Premier League appearances.

This elite roster also includes 222 top division goals and over 320 international caps.

They include Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 goals in over 100 games for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home match versus reigning champions their rivals and scored every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick.

The squad for this campaign also features ex- pros such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the ex- top-flight players have won fifteen significant trophies and transferred for total transfer sums of about £123 million.

Household Names and Global Stars

Stephen Ireland in action
Stephen Ireland won 6 Irish appearances, scoring 4 scores

Ireland began turning out for the team in preseason this season through good friend and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then invited additional former professionals, who all compete in a weekly small-sided game, to participate.

Former Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted twelve scores in 65 Premier League games for the Toffees and even now goes to their home games, also made his first appearance versus the opposition - who are based in the city and use an Everton training kit as their strip.

Oumar Niasse playing for Everton
Oumar Niasse played for Everton between 2016 and 2020

"A mate Stephen told me 'come and play, it's good fun'," said Niasse.

"After that he informed me we were playing a team from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Everton shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!

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

"Those people who come and watch are happy and to give someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."

Such is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his first game at defender.

"It's a little unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he added.

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

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

Maynor Figueroa in action
Ex- Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa is turning out for Wythenshawe

Unreal Experience

Along with Cisse's 6 scores on debut, Ireland has scored 8 in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a hat-trick in one game up front.

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

One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against former Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young boy who Emile Heskey was.

He has appeared at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than two hundred top-flight matches.

"It was going round like a rumor they had these former top-flight players," said the player.

"I think I was a bit awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.

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

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

"Our group really haven't stopped talking about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the way home.

"They 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 fixture."

We Will Still Take the Title'

The manager manages the opposition veterans team, who won the Top Tier title the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.

"We went 1-0 up and had a

Amy Hood
Amy Hood

Tech enthusiast and futurist with a passion for exploring how emerging technologies shape society and daily life.