Discover this Weekend Division Club Boasting Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Appearances
What do you improve a stellar experienced side that have secured back-to-back championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting thirty victories from thirty-two matches?
Recruit a raft of ex- pro players that have competed at the highest level of club and global football as you pursue more silverware.
One Greater Manchester team fields an amateur vets squad with nine former top-flight players in their current roster.
222 Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Appearances
The team Vets Over 35s are located in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Top Division.
The squad list this season features 9 former top-flight footballers, with a collective over 1,800 Premier League games.
This high-profile squad also contains over 220 Premier League goals and over 320 international caps.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who notched 37 scores in over 100 appearances for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club Freiburg in 2012.
He had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home game against defending title holders their rivals and scored every one of the six goals in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute opening period triple.
The squad for this season also includes ex- pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- Premier League players have claimed fifteen major honors and transferred for combined transfer sums of about £123 million.
Well-Known Names and Global Stars
Ireland started playing for the team in preseason this season through close mate and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side match, to join in.
Former Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 scores in 65 top-flight games for the Toffees and still goes to their home games, also had his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton training kit as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen Ireland said 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented Niasse.
"Then he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Everton kits - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still enjoy the game and you know you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"The fans who come and see are happy and to make someone's moment if they see us competing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us getting a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he made his debut at defender.
"That's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"The movement is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Scenario
Along with the forward's six goals on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a triple in one match as a striker.
The team are leading of the Premier Tier with three wins from three and a GD of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Wigan defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at 2 global tournaments for his country, in addition to playing in more than two hundred Premier League games.
"It was spreading like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League stars," remarked Barrow.
"I felt I was a little awestruck facing him to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got over 60 England appearances.
"Our side held our own for a good 20 minutes but then we had a player sent off and it was tough.
"Our group literally have not ceased talking about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the second match."
We Will Still Win the League'
The manager coaches the opposition vets side, who secured the Top Tier title last season, along with his co-manager.
"We went 1-0 ahead and had a