Meet the Sunday Division Team With Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Appearances
What can you boost a outstanding veteran team that have won back-to-back titles, including a double triumph boasting thirty victories from 32 games?
Sign a raft of ex- pro players that have competed at the elite level of club football and international football as you aim for further trophies.
A Greater Manchester club boasts an amateur veterans squad with 9 ex- Premier League players in their current lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, 325 Global Appearances
The team Vets Over 35s are based in south the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Premier Division.
Their lineup this season boasts 9 former Premier League footballers, with a collective 1,801 Premier League games.
The star-studded roster also boasts over 220 top division goals and over 320 global appearances.
They feature one forward, who notched thirty-seven goals in over 100 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse had his first appearance for the team in their last home-field match against defending title holders their rivals and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - including a 32-minute first-half triple.
Wythenshawe's squad for this campaign also features ex- pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- top-flight players have secured 15 major trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of around £123 million.
Household Figures and International Players
Ireland began turning out for the team in pre-season this season through good friend and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then invited other ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.
Ex- Senegalese striker Niasse, who scored twelve goals in 65 Premier League matches for the Toffees and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen Ireland said 'come and play, it's good fun'," said Niasse.
"Then he told me we were playing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Blue kits - I thought this is wrong for me!
"When you still enjoy the game and you know you can still do it, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"The fans who come and see are happy and to give a day if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us having somewhere we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his first game at full-back.
"It's a bit different but then, I love sprinting and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.
"The running is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Experience
Along with the forward's 6 scores on his first game, Ireland has netted 8 in 3 appearances for the side, while George Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one game as a striker.
Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Division with 3 victories from three and a GD of plus nineteen.
One opponent, 38, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at two global tournaments for his country, in addition to playing in over two hundred Premier League games.
"It was going round like wildfire they had all these former top-flight stars," said the player.
"I think I was a bit starstruck facing him to be honest.
"Even Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd English caps.
"Our side competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"We literally have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of regular fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Win the Title'
The manager coaches the opposition veterans team, who secured the Premier Tier title the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.
"We scored 1-0 up and had a