Introduce the Weekend League Club Featuring Nearly Two Thousand Premier League Matches
What can you enhance a stellar veteran squad that have secured consecutive championships, including a league-cup double with thirty victories from 32 matches?
Recruit a group of ex- professionals who have played at the top level of club and global soccer as you pursue additional trophies.
One Manchester club boasts an amateur veterans squad with nine ex- top-flight players in their present lineup.
222 Top Division Goals, 325 International Caps
The team Vets Over 35s are situated in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Veterans League Premier Division.
Their roster this season features 9 former Premier League players, with a collective nearly 1,800 top-flight matches.
The star-studded team also includes 222 top division goals and 325 international caps.
The squad include one forward, who netted 37 scores in 117 games for Newcastle United after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He made his first appearance for the team in their most recent home match against reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's squad for this season also features ex- pros such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- top-flight players have won 15 big trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of around £123m.
Well-Known Names and International Stars
Stephen Ireland started playing for the side during pre-season this summer through good friend and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked additional former professionals, who all compete in a weekly small-sided game, to participate.
Former Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted 12 scores in sixty-five Premier League games for the Toffees and still attends their home games, also had his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen Ireland said 'come and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were facing a team from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Blue kits - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still love the game and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?
"The spectators who turn up and watch are happy and to give a moment if they see us competing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the joy of us getting a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
So great is the strength in depth at the club, he had his debut at defender.
"That's a little different but then, I enjoy running and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.
"That movement is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Experience
Along with Cisse's six goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his debut appearance and Lescott, a defender by position, notched a hat-trick in one game up front.
Wythenshawe are top of the Top Division with 3 victories from 3 and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at 2 global tournaments for his country, in addition to playing in more than two hundred Premier League matches.
"The news was going round like wildfire they had these former top-flight stars," remarked Barrow.
"I think I was a bit starstruck playing against him to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's has over 60 England appearances.
"We competed well for a solid 20 mins but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.
"Our group really haven't stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.
"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a group of regular fellas.
"Now we are eager for the return match."
'We'll Still Win the Title'
The manager coaches the opposition veterans side, who won the Top Tier championship the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"We went 1-0 ahead and had a