Meet this Weekend Division Squad Boasting 1,800 English Top Division Games
How do you improve a stellar experienced team that have claimed back-to-back titles, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 victories from 32 matches?
Recruit a group of former pro players who have performed at the highest tier of club and international football as you target additional silverware.
A Greater Manchester club boasts an amateur veterans team with nine former Premier League players in their present squad.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, 325 Global Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are based in southern the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Top Division.
Their roster this season includes nine former top-flight footballers, with a combined nearly 1,800 elite appearances.
This elite roster also boasts 222 Premier League scores and over 320 international appearances.
They include one forward, who scored 37 goals in over 100 appearances for his former club after signing for them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his first appearance for the team in their last home-field match versus defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six scores in a six-two win - featuring a half-hour opening period triple.
Wythenshawe's squad for this campaign also includes ex- pros such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward 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.
Together, the former top-flight players have secured fifteen significant honors and moved for combined transfer sums of about £123m.
Well-Known Names and International Players
Ireland started playing for the side during pre-season this summer through close friend and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then asked additional ex-pros, who all play in a weekly small-sided match, to join in.
Former Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve goals in 65 top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now goes to their home games, also had his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and wear an Everton training kit as their uniform.
"A friend Stephen Ireland told me 'join and play, it's enjoyable'," commented the striker.
"Then he informed me we were playing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Everton kits - I say this is strange for me!
"If you still love the game and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"The people who turn up and see are happy and to give someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the bench strength at the club, he had his debut at defender.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I love running and just move inside - I'm not staying back that much," he added.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.
"The running is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."
Dreamlike' Experience
In addition to the forward's 6 scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his first match and Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a triple in one match up front.
The team are top of the Top Tier with 3 victories from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for the opposition, came up against former Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.
He has played at two global tournaments for his country, in addition to featuring in over two hundred Premier League matches.
"The news was spreading like wildfire they had all these former top-flight players," remarked Barrow.
"I felt I was a bit awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's got over 60 English appearances.
"Our side competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
"We literally have not stopped talking about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the way home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of regular guys.
"Now we can't wait for the second match."
We Will Still Win the League'
Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate vets team, who won the Top Tier championship the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.
"We scored one-nil up and had a