Meet the Weekend Division Team Boasting Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Games
How do you enhance a stellar veteran team who have claimed consecutive titles, featuring a league-cup double boasting thirty victories from thirty-two games?
Sign a raft of ex- pro players that have played at the highest level of club football and international football as you pursue more trophies.
One Manchester team fields an non-professional vets squad with nine ex- Premier League players in their present lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances
The team Vets Over-35s are based in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets League Premier Tier.
The squad list this campaign includes 9 former top-flight footballers, with a total 1,801 elite appearances.
This elite team also includes 222 Premier League scores and 325 international appearances.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who scored thirty-seven goals in over 100 games for his former club after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club Freiburg in January 2012.
He made his first appearance for the team in their last home-field match versus defending title holders their rivals and scored all six scores in a 6-2 win - featuring a half-hour first-half triple.
The squad for this campaign also includes ex- professionals such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan 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 ex- Premier League players have won 15 big trophies and moved for combined transfer sums of about £123 million.
Well-Known Names and International Stars
Stephen Ireland started playing for the team in pre-season this summer through close mate and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then asked additional former professionals, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to participate.
Ex- Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve goals in sixty-five top-flight matches for Everton and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against the opposition - who are located in the city and use an Everton training kit as their strip.
"A friend Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," said the striker.
"Then he informed me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Everton kits - I thought this is wrong for me!
"If you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still play, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"The spectators who turn up and see are happy and to give someone's day if they see us competing there and to pose us questions - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can play, with organisation of course."
Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at full-back.
"That's a little different but then, I love running and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"That movement is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."
Unreal Scenario
Along with Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his debut match and Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a hat-trick in one match as a striker.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Tier with 3 wins from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced former Latics full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young son who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in more than 200 Premier League matches.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had these former top-flight stars," said the player.
"I felt I was a bit awestruck playing against him to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got 60-odd England caps.
"Our side held our own for a good 20 mins but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
"We literally haven't stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the journey home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of regular fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the return fixture."
'We'll Still Win the League'
Andy Kirby coaches the opposition vets team, who won the Premier Division title the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.
"We went one-nil up and had a