Discover this Weekend Division Squad Boasting Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Appearances
What can you boost a stellar veteran team who have claimed back-to-back championships, including a league-cup double with thirty wins from thirty-two matches?
Recruit a raft of ex- pro players who have played at the elite level of club and international soccer as you aim for more honors.
One Manchester side fields an non-professional vets team with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their present lineup.
222 Top Division Goals, 325 International Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are based in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Premier Tier.
The squad list this campaign includes nine former top-flight footballers, with a total over 1,800 elite games.
This high-profile team also includes over 220 top division scores and 325 international appearances.
The squad include one forward, who scored 37 scores in 117 appearances for his former club after joining them for nine million pounds from German league side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his debut for the team in their last home-field match versus reigning champions their rivals and netted every one of the six goals in a 6-2 win - featuring a 32-minute opening period triple.
Wythenshawe's team for this campaign also includes ex- professionals such as England and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the former Premier League footballers have claimed 15 big trophies and moved for combined transfer fees of approximately £123 million.
Household Figures and International Stars
Stephen Ireland began turning out for the side in preseason this summer through close friend and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then invited additional former professionals, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to participate.
Former Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five top-flight games for Everton and still goes to their home games, also made his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Blue training kit as their strip.
"A mate Stephen told me 'come and have a game, it's a laugh'," said Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I thought this is strange for me!
"When you still enjoy the game and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?
"Those fans who turn up and watch are pleased and to give someone's moment if they see us playing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us having a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
So great is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he had his first game at full-back.
"That'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.
"The movement is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Feeling
In addition to the forward's six scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his first match and Lescott, a defender by position, scored a hat-trick in one match up front.
Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Tier with three victories from three and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for the opposition, came up against former Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.
He has played at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than two hundred top-flight matches.
"The news was spreading like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League stars," remarked the player.
"I think I was a little starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got 60-odd England caps.
"We held our own for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.
"We really have not ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the journey home.
"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of normal fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
We Will Still Take the Title'
The manager manages the opposition veterans team, who secured the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.
"We went one-nil ahead and had a