Meet the Weekend Division Club Boasting 1,800 English Top Division Appearances
How do you improve a outstanding veteran squad who have won back-to-back championships, featuring a double triumph boasting 30 wins from thirty-two games?
Sign a group of ex- professionals that have competed at the elite level of club and international soccer as you target more honors.
One Manchester team fields an non-professional veterans team with nine ex- top-flight players in their present lineup.
222 Top Division Goals, 325 Global Appearances
The team Vets Over 35s are based in southern the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Top Division.
Their roster this season includes 9 ex- top-flight footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 top-flight games.
The elite squad also boasts 222 top division goals and over 320 global caps.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who scored thirty-seven goals in over 100 games for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse had his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home-field match against reigning title holders their rivals and netted all six scores in a 6-2 win - featuring a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.
The squad for this campaign also features ex- professionals such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- Premier League players have secured 15 significant trophies and moved for total transfer fees of around £123 million.
Well-Known Names and International Players
Ireland began turning out for the team in preseason this summer through close mate and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then asked other ex-pros, who all play in a weekly small-sided game, to join in.
Former Senegalese forward Niasse, who netted twelve goals in sixty-five Premier League games for the Toffees and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are based in the city and wear an Blue training kit as their strip.
"My friend Stephen Ireland told me 'join and play, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Blue kits - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still love football and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?
"The people who come and see are happy and to make someone's moment if they see us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the squad depth at the club, he made his first game at full-back.
"It's a little different but then, I love running and just move inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"The movement is what I'm seeking. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Experience
In addition to the forward's six scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his debut match and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
Wythenshawe are top of the Top Division with three victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against former Latics defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.
He has played at two World Cups for his country, in addition to featuring in more than 200 top-flight games.
"The news was going round like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League players," said Barrow.
"I felt I was a bit starstruck playing against him to be honest.
"Even Heskey got on and he's got over 60 England appearances.
"We competed well for a solid 20 minutes but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.
"We literally have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of normal fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second match."
We Will Still Win the Title'
The manager manages the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.
"We went one-nil up and had a