Words: Asad Raza

“I never expected this to happen. I was very naive,” Kieran Megran, manager of Wythenshawe FC Veterans, tells MUNDIAL on a wet morning in South Manchester. It’s the sort of day when the clouds overhead are a gunmetal grey, but Kieran’s smile cuts through it all: a megawatt gleam that only grows wider and wider as he talks about the transformation his football club has undergone.   

You’ll have read all about them by now. Seen supercuts doing the rounds on social media, where bewildered men in their forties are baffled by opponents that are faster, stronger, more skillful than even the most gifted. You squint and think, hang on a minute, that fella looks awfully like Jefferson Montero. Wait, it is Jefferson Montero?! 

Stephen Ireland, Papiss Cisse, Emile Heskey, Maynor Figueroa, Joleon Lescott, George Boyd, Danny Drinkwater and more. A veterans squad that contains over 1,800 Premier League appearances, nearly 400 international caps, and 15 major honours. All lining up week in, week out at Hollyhedge Park. It’s a frankly outstanding sight. 

But they’re not the only reason for the big grin on Kieran’s face. He’s a man who can see the changes happening all around him, changes wrought, in part, thanks to the Premier League Stadium Fund and the Football Foundation, charity of the Premier League, The FA and Government. Launched in 2000, the Premier League Stadium Fund has helped over a thousand clubs across the country, pouring in over £220 million into the men’s and women’s pyramid. Grants are focused on supporting clubs to become more financially and environmentally sustainable, giving them the infrastructure they need not only to survive, but thrive as hubs for their communities.   

The Football Foundation, co-funded by the Premier League, FA and the government, has distributed £1.3 billion to the level below: grassroots. Often, the two initiatives work hand in hand as non-league clubs invest into facilities for community use. 

Nowhere is that clearer than at Wythenshawe, whose 80 (EIGHTY) teams reap the full benefits of these initiatives. Kieran knows exactly how big an impact it has had: “The funding from the Premier League has been massive. It’s not just helped us move up the leagues—it’s helped so much with the infrastructure of the club. Our pitches and facilities, even the clubhouse—after renovating it the difference was massive. 

It's essentially helping lay the foundations for the club to build on. The future plans that we have are through the roof, and we want to go as high as we can. And with the help of people like the Premier League that vision is allowed to happen.

“Definitely it’s helped with the men’s first team who have flown up the leagues, and the women's team now are flying too. They wouldn't be able to do it without having a ground at a certain standard, which obviously wouldn’t be possible without the Premier League. Which, considering there's the perception of it as such a massive entity, they do take the time out to help every club possible.”  

The investment in the future has been felt at all levels of the football club. Since 2016, the Premier League Stadium Fund has provided £104,000 towards improving Wythenshawe’s first team stadium — new floodlights, real modernisation, the works. A further £672,000 has come from the Football Foundation, helping install some fantastic pitches to serve their grassroots teams, and providing the club with a brilliant new changing pavilion.   “It's essentially helping lay the foundations for the club to build on,” Kieran continues. “So we can be bigger and more successful in the months and years to come. The future plans that we have are through the roof, and we want to go as high as we can. And with the help of people like the Premier League that vision is allowed to happen.” 

Kieran is a man obsessed with winning, consumed with a desire for excellence. Having led the veterans to winning all but two of their league games last season—taking on all comers, shaking them down—before a cup semi-final defeat in front of hordes of travelling Wythy supporters at West Didsbury & Chorlton left a bitter taste in the mouth. 

“I remember that game really vividly. I walked off at halftime and if you've ever been to Didsbury you’ll know where the dugouts are, behind them there are these hills. I've walked off at halftime, turned, and all the hills and everything behind are rammed. 2,000 people were there that day, a large number of them supporting us. And this was before we had any Premier League players lining up for us. That’s a measure of how much the community has got behind us. It was mad and it was brilliant, but so gutting to lose. I’ll never forget that feeling.” 

Talk turns to this season, and the transition into Wythenshawe’s brave new world. “Last season, my management style was so much more intense—it was a lot more of marching up and down the touch line screaming and shouting, telling players what I wanted step by step. That's nothing against those players, by the way. I  have my standards and wanted stuff done my way because all I cared about for that 90 minutes was winning. 

It gives all these people, and especially the kids, such a buzz to be within touching distance of these ex-pros who they’d never get that close to otherwise. 

“Whereas this year, and you can probably see this from the footage on socials, I stand there with my hands in my pockets and go, ‘wow, wow, wow.’ Like Stephen Ireland or George Boyd have done that with this round bit of leather. 

“People have these ideas about these players. You know,  they've done it at the top. Just because they're extremely good at something, does that mean they're not allowed to go and play in a competitive league? That seems unfair. 

“They're such good guys as well, they're hilarious and have fitted right in. And I will give credit to the lads who have been here from the beginning. Because if they weren't good lads, I suppose they wouldn't have stayed either. Everyone wants to play but everyone knows they’re still part of a team. 

“The lads have been brilliant with the community. They'll take time for photos with the kids and talk to people even though it’s not an obligation. They choose to do it. I think Stevie (Ireland) even had to sign a Manchester United top the other day, but he was happy to do it. It gives all these people, and especially the kids, such a buzz to be within touching distance of these ex-pros who they’d never get that close to otherwise. 

“The impact has been phenomenal, really. We’ve had people from all over travel to come watch us: people from Northern Ireland, Austria, America, even New Zealand. Even the rumours that we’ve got Usain Bolt coming down, which got in the Indian Times, is mental. I've got friends on the other side of the world who have gone, ‘Why am I seeing your face on the Indian Times or on television?’ It’s unthinkable, the impact.” 

The impact has reverberated across the club, most notably through a resurgent women’s team. Sitting down inside the first team changing rooms with Kirsty Chambers—the captain, leader, and legend of Wythenshawe’s Women’s team—a gleaming Premier League trophy inches away from us, we get the impression of a side reborn.  

“I never expected to leave my first club, FC United, but I got speaking to James Mulvihill, the women’s manager here, who would not shut up about Wythenshawe. He was so, so passionate... So I took the plunge. 

 ”And obviously when I came over the first season, the level of football wasn't the level of football I and a few other new players were used to, so we had to adapt to that. But I had James in my ear telling me to trust the process. It was a little bit difficult at first, but then soon the environment, the new changing rooms, the club as a whole had that family feel about it. So it soon became a new home for me.  

“Going from nearly getting relegated to competing at the top of the league has been fantastic.  It's been amazing, not only finding that new love and that newfound confidence within yourself, but also helping, as captain, to get the club in the position where we can keep winning and winning. 

“ But also, it’s a great honor to know that team and the management trusts me to be captain, as well. To take that responsibility. It showed that I’m quite loved within the wider community of the football club, and I love to get involved, if that’s helping coaching younger groups or kids, helping out with everything. And that love is paid back.  

 ”Like, some of the younger girls who support us have told me that they would rather turn up and watch our team than go anywhere else, which I think is such a massive compliment to our team. 

“I think that’s another thing the Premier League funding has helped contribute towards.  It has created opportunities for this younger generation coming through, not only the women's team, or the men's team, but the whole club. I think for me, that’s been the magic of it—helping that next generation of footballers progress and hopefully create more opportunities for them to go as far as they want to go.” 

That sense of community cohesion is something that rings true for Kieran, also.  

“ I've gained some really good friends from this place,” he half-shouts as the wind whips up around us. “I've only been here three years. I've only been in the area for five. So it has become a bit of a family place. They’ve made myself and my actual family feel really welcome. 

“Everyone has their spa, their place of rest, and there's some really, really good people in the club. It’s become a safe space, a place where I know I could come in –. I've done it lots before – on my own. I don't even have to have a beer.  

 “I can sit and there'll be someone in the clubhouse who you can talk to, and you can talk about anything, whether you've got problems or not. It is that place. The old guard who have been here forever, who clean up and maintain the place: they give it a soul. That’s what the club has become for me and so many others.” 

 A haven and a sanctuary. Not just for the weekend regulars, not even just for Stephen Ireland and Danny Drinkwater to sneak a few swift ones after being back on the turf. A place for anyone to come in, take a pew, and simply be. Can’t say fairer than that.