Usain Bolt Joins Wythenshawe Vets FC in Manchester
Usain Bolt, the fastest man in history, has quietly signed up for Sunday league football in Manchester.
The eight-time Olympic champion is listed on the Football Association's Full-Time website as a registered player for Wythenshawe Vets FC, an over-35s side who compete in the Premier Division of the Cheshire Veterans Football League.
No fanfare. No big reveal. Just Usain Bolt’s name dropped into a veterans’ squad list.
Bolt joins star-studded veterans side
Wythenshawe Vets, based in south Manchester, already turned heads last season when they built a squad packed with former Premier League talent. It looked like a nostalgia tour. Now it has the greatest sprinter of all time on the books.
The current squad reads like a roll call from a recent era of English football: former England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, ex-Everton forward Oumar Niasse, former Manchester United captain Antonio Valencia, Newcastle’s one-time goal threat Papiss Cisse, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha, plus Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Into that mix comes Bolt, 40 years old and still the benchmark for pure speed. His world records over 100m and 200m, set at the 2009 World Championships, remain untouched.
From world records to Sunday league
Since retiring from athletics in 2017, Bolt has chased a serious football dream. He trained with clubs, took trials and pushed to turn raw pace into professional minutes.
In 2018 he scored twice in a friendly for Australian A-League side Central Coast Mariners and went on to sign a contract with the club. He had turned down a two-year offer from Maltese side Valletta before that, backing the Australian move instead. The spell was brief, though; he left the Mariners after just eight weeks.
Now his name sits on a veterans’ team sheet in Cheshire. No official unveiling, no social media clips of his first training session.
Wythenshawe Vets have not yet announced Bolt’s registration and have been contacted for comment. Until they speak, the idea of Usain Bolt turning out on a Sunday in south Manchester lingers as football’s most surreal potential sight of the season.
