Discover the Weekend League Team Featuring Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Matches
What do you boost a excellent veteran team that have secured back-to-back championships, including a league-cup double boasting thirty victories from thirty-two games?
Bring in a raft of ex- professionals that have competed at the elite level of club and global football as you target further silverware.
A Manchester team has an amateur veterans squad with nine former Premier League footballers in their present squad.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Caps
The team Vets Over-35s are situated in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Veterans League Top Tier.
The lineup this season boasts 9 ex- top-flight players, with a collective over 1,800 top-flight appearances.
The elite squad also boasts 222 top division scores and 325 global appearances.
They include one forward, who netted thirty-seven scores in over 100 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in 2012.
He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match against reigning title holders their rivals and scored every one of the six goals in a six-two victory - featuring a half-hour opening period hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's squad for this season also features ex- pros such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- Premier League players have secured 15 big trophies and transferred for combined transfer fees of about £123m.
Household Figures and Global Players
Ireland started playing for the team during pre-season this summer through good mate and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then invited additional ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly small-sided match, to join in.
Ex- Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted twelve scores in sixty-five Premier League matches for the Toffees and still goes to their home games, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are located in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their strip.
"My friend Stephen Ireland said 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Everton shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!
"When you still enjoy the game and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?
"Those people who come and watch are happy and to give someone's moment if they see us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
So great is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his debut at defender.
"That's a little unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"That movement is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
Unreal Experience
In addition to the forward's six goals on debut, Ireland has netted 8 in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a hat-trick in one match as a striker.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Division with three victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in addition to featuring in over two hundred Premier League matches.
"It was spreading like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League players," remarked Barrow.
"I think I was a little starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd England caps.
"Our side competed well for a solid twenty mins but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
"We literally have not ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of normal fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
We Will Still Take the Title'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate vets team, who won the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.
"We scored one-nil ahead and had a