Discover the Weekend League Team Featuring Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Games
What do you boost a excellent experienced squad that have claimed back-to-back titles, featuring a league-cup double boasting thirty victories from 32 games?
Bring in a group of ex- pro players who have played at the highest tier of club football and global soccer as you pursue more trophies.
One Manchester side boasts an amateur vets team with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their present roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 Global Appearances
The team Vets Over 35s are situated in south the city and play in the Cheshire Veterans Division Top Tier.
Their roster this campaign includes nine former top-flight players, with a combined nearly 1,800 Premier League appearances.
The elite roster also contains 222 top division scores and over 320 global caps.
They include one forward, who notched 37 goals in over 100 appearances for his former club after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga club Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home-field match versus defending champions their rivals and scored all six scores in a six-two win - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's team for this season also features ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- Premier League players have claimed 15 significant trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of around £123 million.
Household Names and International Stars
Ireland started playing for the team in preseason this summer through close friend and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then invited additional ex-pros, who all play in a midweek small-sided match, to join in.
Ex- Senegal striker Niasse, who scored 12 goals in sixty-five Premier League matches for the Toffees and even now goes to their home games, also made his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," said Niasse.
"Then he told me we were playing a team from the city and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I thought this is strange for me!
"If you still enjoy the game and you know you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"The people who come and see are happy and to make a moment if they watch us competing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the joy of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."
Such is the squad depth at the club, he had his debut at full-back.
"It's a little unusual but then, I love sprinting and just go forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"That running is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
'Surreal Experience
In addition to Cisse's 6 scores on debut, Ireland has netted eight in three games for the side, while Boyd scored 5 on his debut match and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
The team are top of the Premier Tier with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of +19.
One opponent, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in over two hundred top-flight games.
"It was going round like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League stars," remarked the player.
"I think I was a bit awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has 60-odd England appearances.
"We competed well for a solid 20 mins but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.
"We literally have not ceased talking about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the journey home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the return fixture."
We Will Still Take the League'
The manager coaches the Collegiate vets side, who won the Premier Division title the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.
"Our team went one-nil up and had a