Discover the Sunday League Club Boasting Over 1,800 Top-Flight Games
What do you improve a outstanding veteran side who have won back-to-back championships, including a double triumph boasting 30 victories from thirty-two games?
Recruit a raft of former pro players who have performed at the highest tier of club football and international soccer as you pursue additional trophies.
One Manchester club fields an non-professional vets team with 9 ex- Premier League players in their active squad.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, 325 International Caps
The team Vets Over 35s are based in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Top Tier.
The lineup this campaign includes nine former Premier League footballers, with a combined nearly 1,800 Premier League appearances.
The high-profile squad also contains 222 Premier League goals and over 320 international appearances.
They feature one forward, who scored 37 goals in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after moving to them for £9m from German league side Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his debut for the team in their last home-field game against reigning title holders their rivals and netted every one of the six goals in a 6-2 victory - including a half-hour opening period triple.
The squad for this season also includes ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the former Premier League players have secured fifteen significant honors and moved for combined transfer fees of about £123m.
Well-Known Names and International Stars
Ireland started turning out for the side in pre-season this season through good friend and current team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side game, to join in.
Ex- Senegalese forward Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five Premier League matches for the Toffees and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are located in the city and use an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen told me 'join and play, it's good fun'," commented the striker.
"Then he told me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Blue kits - I thought this is wrong for me!
"When you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"The spectators who turn up and see are happy and to give someone's day if they watch us competing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the joy of us having a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
So great is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, he made his debut at full-back.
"It's a little different but then, I love running and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he added.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"The running is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Dreamlike' Experience
Along with Cisse's six goals on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his first match and Lescott, a defender by position, scored a triple in one match up front.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Division with three victories from 3 and a GD of +19.
One opponent, 38, who features on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young boy who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at two global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as featuring in over two hundred Premier League games.
"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these former top-flight stars," remarked Barrow.
"I think I was a little starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got over 60 England appearances.
"We competed well for a solid 20 minutes but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.
"Our group really haven't ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the way home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of normal fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Win the League'
The manager manages the opposition vets side, who secured the Premier Division title the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.
"We scored 1-0 up and had a