Discover this Weekend League Squad Featuring Over 1,800 Premier League Appearances
How do you enhance a excellent veteran squad that have claimed consecutive titles, including a double triumph with thirty wins from thirty-two games?
Recruit a raft of former professionals that have competed at the top level of club and global football as you pursue additional honors.
A Manchester club fields an non-professional veterans team with 9 ex- top-flight players in their present roster.
222 Premier League Scores, 325 International Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are located in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Premier Division.
Their lineup this campaign features nine former top-flight footballers, with a collective over 1,800 elite matches.
This star-studded squad also contains over 220 top division goals and over 320 international appearances.
They include one forward, who netted 37 scores in over 100 appearances for his former club after joining them for Β£9m from German league side Freiburg in 2012.
He made his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home-field match against reigning title holders their rivals and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a half-hour opening period hat-trick.
The squad for this season also features former professionals such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the former top-flight players have claimed 15 major trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of about Β£123 million.
Household Figures and Global Players
Ireland started turning out for the team in preseason this summer through good mate and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side game, to participate.
Ex- Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 goals in sixty-five Premier League matches for Everton and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut versus the opposition - who are located in the city and wear an Blue training kit as their strip.
"My mate Stephen Ireland said 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said the striker.
"Then he informed me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them wearing Blue kits - I say this is wrong for me!
"If you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"The people who turn up and watch are pleased and to make someone's moment if they see us playing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can play, with structure of course."
Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at full-back.
"It's a little different but then, I love running 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 continue running.
"The movement is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
Dreamlike' Scenario
In addition to the forward's six scores on debut, Ireland has netted eight in three games for the side, while George Boyd scored 5 on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a hat-trick in one match up front.
The team are leading of the Premier Division with three wins from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.
One opponent, 38, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against former Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in addition to playing in more than two hundred Premier League matches.
"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these former top-flight players," remarked the player.
"I think I was a little starstruck facing him to be honest.
"Even Heskey got on and he's has 60-odd English caps.
"Our side competed well for a good 20 minutes but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.
"Our group really have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of normal guys.
"Now we can't wait for the second match."
'We'll Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby manages the opposition vets team, who secured the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.
"Our team went 1-0 ahead and had a