Discover this Weekend League Team Featuring Over 1,800 Premier League Matches
How can you improve a outstanding veteran squad that have secured consecutive titles, including a league-cup double boasting 30 wins from thirty-two games?
Recruit a group of former professionals who have competed at the highest tier of club football and global soccer as you aim for more honors.
A Manchester club has an amateur vets squad with nine former top-flight footballers in their present roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, 325 International Caps
The team Vets Over-35s are located in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Veterans Division Premier Tier.
Their roster this season boasts nine ex- Premier League footballers, with a total 1,801 Premier League games.
The elite roster also includes over 220 Premier League goals and 325 global appearances.
They include Papiss Cisse, who notched 37 scores in 117 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in 2012.
He made his debut for the team in their most recent home game against reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six goals in a 6-2 win - featuring a 32-minute first-half triple.
The squad for this season also features former professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- top-flight footballers have secured 15 significant honors and transferred for total transfer fees of approximately £123m.
Household Figures and International Players
Ireland started turning out for the team during pre-season this summer through close mate and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited additional former professionals, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side match, to participate.
Ex- Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 scores in sixty-five Premier League games for the Toffees and even now goes to their home games, also had his first appearance against the opposition - who are located in the city and use an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"My friend Stephen Ireland said 'join and have a game, it's good fun'," said Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Blue shirts - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still love football and you know you can still play, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"The spectators who come and watch are happy and to make a moment if they watch us competing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at defender.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy running and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"That running is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
Unreal Scenario
In addition to Cisse's 6 goals on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in 3 appearances for the side, while George Boyd scored five on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one match as a striker.
Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Division with 3 victories from three and a goal difference of +19.
One opponent, 38, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.
He has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in more than two hundred top-flight matches.
"It was going round like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League players," remarked the player.
"I think I was a little awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got 60-odd England caps.
"We competed well for a good 20 minutes but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.
"We literally have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the journey home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of regular fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Win the League'
The manager coaches the Collegiate vets side, who won the Top Division championship the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team went 1-0 up and had a