Meet this Sunday Division Squad Featuring 1,800 Top-Flight Games
How can you improve a excellent veteran team that have won back-to-back championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting thirty wins from thirty-two games?
Sign a raft of ex- pro players that have competed at the top tier of club and global football as you target more silverware.
A Greater Manchester side boasts an non-professional veterans squad with 9 former top-flight footballers in their active squad.
222 Top Division Goals, 325 International Appearances
The team Vets Over 35s are located in south the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Premier Tier.
The lineup this campaign features 9 former Premier League footballers, with a collective 1,801 elite appearances.
This star-studded roster also contains 222 top division goals and 325 global appearances.
The squad include one forward, who notched 37 goals in over 100 games for Newcastle United after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club Freiburg in January 2012.
He made his debut for the team in their last home match versus defending title holders their rivals and netted every one of the six goals in a six-two win - including a half-hour opening period hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's team for this season also features ex- pros such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the ex- top-flight footballers have secured fifteen big honors and transferred for total transfer sums of approximately £123m.
Famous Names and Global Stars
Ireland started turning out for the side in pre-season this summer through good friend and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side match, to participate.
Former Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 scores in sixty-five Premier League games for the Toffees and still goes to their home games, also made his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their uniform.
"A friend Stephen said 'come and play, it's good fun'," commented the striker.
"Then he told me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Blue kits - I say this is wrong for me!
"If you still enjoy football and you know you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"The fans who turn up and see are pleased and to give someone's moment if they see us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."
Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his first game at full-back.
"It's a little unusual but then, I enjoy running and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.
"That running is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
Unreal Feeling
Along with the forward's six scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his first match and Lescott, a defender by position, scored a triple in one match up front.
The team are top of the Premier Division with three victories from three and a goal difference of +19.
Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Latics defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young boy who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at two global tournaments for his country, in as well as featuring in more than two hundred top-flight matches.
"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League stars," remarked the player.
"I think I was a bit starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's has 60-odd English appearances.
"Our side competed well for a solid twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.
"Our group literally haven't ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the way home.
"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the second match."
We Will Still Take the League'
The manager coaches the opposition veterans side, who secured the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"We went 1-0 ahead and had a