Discover the Sunday Division Team With 1,800 English Top Division Matches
What can you enhance a outstanding veteran side that have secured back-to-back titles, including a league-cup double boasting 30 wins from thirty-two games?
Recruit a group of ex- pro players that have competed at the elite level of club football and global football as you pursue more honors.
One Manchester side has an amateur vets squad with nine ex- Premier League footballers in their active roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps
Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are situated in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Vets League Premier Tier.
Their lineup this season features nine former Premier League players, with a combined 1,801 elite matches.
The high-profile squad also contains 222 Premier League scores and over 320 global appearances.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who notched 37 scores in 117 games for Newcastle United after moving to them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home game against reigning champions their rivals and scored every one of the six goals in a 6-2 victory - including a half-hour opening period hat-trick.
The roster for this season also includes former professionals such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- top-flight players have claimed fifteen major honors and moved for total transfer sums of about £123 million.
Household Figures and International Stars
Ireland started playing for the team during pre-season this summer through close friend and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side game, to join in.
Former Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted 12 goals in 65 Premier League games for the Toffees and even now attends their home games, also made his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and use an Blue training kit as their strip.
"My mate Stephen said 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," said the striker.
"Then he told me we were playing a side from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Everton shirts - I say this is strange for me!
"When you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still play, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"Those people who turn up and watch are happy and to give a moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."
Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at defender.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I love sprinting and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"The movement is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."
Unreal Feeling
Along with the forward's six scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored 5 on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
The team are top of the Premier Division with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of +19.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against former Latics full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at two global tournaments for his country, in as well as playing in more than two hundred top-flight matches.
"It was spreading like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League stars," said the player.
"I felt I was a little starstruck playing against him to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's got 60-odd English caps.
"Our side competed well for a good twenty minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
"Our group really haven't ceased talking about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the journey home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the return fixture."
'We'll Still Take the Title'
The manager manages the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Premier Tier title last season, together with his co-manager.
"Our team went one-nil up and had a