Introduce the Sunday Division Team With Over 1,800 English Top Division Appearances
What can you boost a outstanding veteran team who have claimed consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph boasting 30 wins from 32 games?
Bring in a raft of former pro players who have performed at the elite level of club and international soccer as you aim for more silverware.
One Greater Manchester club boasts an non-professional veterans team with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their current lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, 325 Global Caps
The team Vets Over-35s are located in south the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Top Division.
Their squad list this campaign features 9 ex- top-flight players, with a total 1,801 top-flight matches.
This star-studded squad also contains over 220 Premier League scores and over 320 international appearances.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 goals in 117 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga club Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home-field game against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a half-hour opening period hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's squad for this campaign also features former pros such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger 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.
In total, the former top-flight players have claimed fifteen major honors and transferred for combined transfer sums of approximately £123 million.
Famous Names and Global Players
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team during preseason this summer through close friend and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side match, to join in.
Ex- Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 goals in 65 top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut against the opposition - who are located in the city and use an Everton training kit as their strip.
"A mate Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said the striker.
"Then he told me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Everton shirts - I say this is wrong for me!
"If you still enjoy the game and you know you can still play, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"The fans who come and see are pleased and to give someone's day if they see us playing there and to pose us questions - it's really about the joy of us getting a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
So great is the bench strength at the club, he made his debut at defender.
"It's a bit different but then, I love running and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"That movement is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
Unreal Feeling
Along with Cisse's six goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Tier with 3 wins from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young son who Emile Heskey was.
He has appeared at 2 global tournaments for his country, in as well as featuring in over two hundred top-flight games.
"It was going round like a rumor they had these former top-flight stars," remarked Barrow.
"I felt I was a little starstruck facing him to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has over 60 English caps.
"Our side competed well for a good 20 mins but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.
"We literally haven't stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the way home.
"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of regular guys.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby coaches the opposition vets team, who secured the Top Division championship last season, together with his co-manager.
"Our team went one-nil ahead and had a