Meet the Sunday Division Squad Featuring 1,800 Top-Flight Matches
What do you enhance a stellar experienced squad that have secured back-to-back championships, featuring a double triumph with 30 wins from thirty-two games?
Sign a raft of ex- pro players that have performed at the elite tier of club football and global soccer as you pursue more silverware.
One Manchester team fields an amateur veterans squad with nine ex- top-flight footballers in their present lineup.
222 Top Division Goals, 325 International Appearances
The team Vets Over 35s are based in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Vets League Top Division.
Their roster this campaign boasts nine ex- top-flight players, with a collective nearly 1,800 top-flight appearances.
This star-studded squad also boasts 222 Premier League goals and 325 global appearances.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven scores in over 100 appearances for his former club after joining them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He made his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home game versus defending champions their rivals and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a half-hour first-half triple.
Wythenshawe's roster for this season also features ex- professionals such as England and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the former top-flight footballers have won 15 big trophies and transferred for combined transfer fees of about £123m.
Household Names and Global Players
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team during pre-season this season through good mate and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then asked other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly small-sided game, to participate.
Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who netted 12 scores in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and even now goes to their home games, also made his debut against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.
"A friend Stephen Ireland told me 'come and play, it's a laugh'," said Niasse.
"Then he told me we were facing a side from the city and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Blue kits - I thought this is wrong for me!
"When you still enjoy football and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"Those spectators who turn up and see are happy and to make someone's moment if they see us competing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the joy of us having a place we can play, with organisation 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 move forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"That movement is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Experience
Along with the forward's 6 goals on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, scored a triple in one match as a striker.
Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Division with 3 victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, faced ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.
He has appeared at 2 global tournaments for his country, in as well as featuring in more than 200 Premier League games.
"It was going round like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League stars," said Barrow.
"I felt I was a little awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's has 60-odd England caps.
"Our side held our own for a good twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.
"We really have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the journey home.
"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of normal fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the second match."
'We'll Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby coaches the opposition veterans side, who won the Premier Division championship last season, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team went one-nil ahead and had a