Meet the Weekend Division Team Boasting 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances
What can you improve a outstanding experienced squad who have secured consecutive championships, including a league-cup double boasting 30 wins from thirty-two matches?
Recruit a collection of former professionals that have performed at the highest level of club and international football as you aim for further honors.
One Manchester club boasts an amateur veterans team with nine former top-flight players in their active roster.
222 Top Division Scores, 325 Global Caps
The team Vets Over-35s are based in southern the city and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Premier Tier.
The lineup this campaign includes nine former top-flight players, with a total 1,801 top-flight matches.
The star-studded team also boasts over 220 Premier League scores and over 320 international appearances.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven goals in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse had his first appearance for the team in their last home match versus defending champions their rivals and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.
The team for this season also includes former professionals such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the former top-flight players have claimed 15 big trophies and moved for combined transfer sums of approximately £123m.
Household Figures and International Stars
Stephen Ireland started playing for the side in pre-season this season through good friend and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then asked other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly small-sided game, to participate.
Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 Premier League games for Everton and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.
"A friend Stephen Ireland told me 'come and play, it's a laugh'," commented the striker.
"After that he told me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Everton shirts - I thought this is strange for me!
"When you still love the game and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?
"The spectators who come and see are pleased and to give someone's moment if they watch us competing there and to pose us questions - it's really about the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
So great is the bench strength at the club, Niasse had his debut at full-back.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go forward - 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 keep running.
"The running is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
Dreamlike' Scenario
Along with Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Ireland has scored 8 in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one game as a striker.
The team are top of the Top Division with three victories from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.
He has appeared at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as featuring in over 200 Premier League games.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had these former top-flight stars," said the player.
"I felt I was a bit starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Heskey got on and he's got over 60 English appearances.
"We competed well for a solid 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"We really have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mum and sibling on the way home.
"The opponents were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a bunch of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the second match."
We Will Still Win the Title'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate veterans side, who won the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.
"Our team went 1-0 up and had a