Meet the Weekend Division Club With Over 1,800 English Top Division Appearances
What can you enhance a stellar veteran side who have won consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph boasting thirty victories from 32 matches?
Recruit a collection of ex- professionals that have played at the elite level of club football and global soccer as you target more silverware.
One Greater Manchester team has an non-professional veterans squad with 9 ex- top-flight players in their present lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, 325 Global Appearances
The team Vets Over 35s are situated in south the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Top Tier.
The squad list this campaign features 9 former top-flight footballers, with a collective 1,801 Premier League appearances.
This high-profile team also contains over 220 Premier League scores and 325 global appearances.
The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 goals in 117 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for £9m from German league side Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home match against reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - featuring a 32-minute opening period triple.
The roster for this season also includes former professionals such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the former top-flight footballers have claimed fifteen major trophies and moved for combined transfer sums of approximately £123 million.
Well-Known Names and International Stars
Stephen Ireland began playing for the team during preseason this summer through close mate and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all play in a midweek small-sided match, to participate.
Former Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 Premier League matches for the Toffees and still attends their home games, also made his debut against the opposition - who are based in the city and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"A friend Stephen told me 'join and play, it's enjoyable'," commented Niasse.
"Then he informed me we were playing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them wearing Everton shirts - I say this is strange for me!
"If you still enjoy football and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?
"The fans who come and watch are happy and to give someone's day if they watch us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
So great is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his debut at full-back.
"That's a bit different but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.
"That movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."
'Surreal Feeling
In addition to Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in three games for the side, while George Boyd scored 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a triple in one match as a striker.
The team are top of the Top Division with 3 wins from three and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against former Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young boy who Heskey was.
He has appeared at 2 global tournaments for his country, in addition to featuring in over two hundred top-flight matches.
"The news was spreading like a rumor they had these former top-flight players," said Barrow.
"I think I was a bit starstruck playing against him to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has over 60 English appearances.
"We competed well for a good 20 minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
"Our group really have not ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home.
"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of regular guys.
"Now we are eager for the second match."
'We'll Still Win the League'
Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate veterans side, who won the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.
"We scored 1-0 up and had a