Meet the Sunday Division Squad Boasting Over 1,800 English Top Division Games
What do you boost a outstanding veteran squad who have secured consecutive championships, including a double triumph boasting thirty victories from 32 matches?
Recruit a collection of ex- professionals that have played at the top tier of club and international football as you aim for more honors.
One Manchester club fields an amateur veterans squad with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their present roster.
222 Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances
The team Vets Over 35s are based in southern the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Top Tier.
Their roster this season boasts nine ex- top-flight footballers, with a collective over 1,800 top-flight matches.
The elite team also contains over 220 Premier League scores and over 320 international caps.
They include Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven scores in over 100 games for Newcastle United after moving to them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse made his debut for the team in their most recent home-field game versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six goals in a six-two win - featuring a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.
The roster for this season also includes ex- pros such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the ex- Premier League players have claimed 15 significant trophies and moved for total transfer sums of around £123 million.
Famous Figures and International Stars
Ireland began playing for the team during pre-season this summer through close friend and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then invited additional former professionals, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to participate.
Former Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 scores in sixty-five Premier League games for the Toffees and still goes to their home games, also made his debut versus the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their strip.
"A mate Stephen Ireland said 'join and play, it's a laugh'," commented the striker.
"After that he told me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Blue kits - I say this is wrong for me!
"If you still enjoy football and you know you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?
"Those spectators who turn up and see are pleased and to give someone's day if they watch us competing there and to pose us questions - it's really about the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."
So great is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his debut at defender.
"That's a little unusual but then, I love running and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"That running is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Experience
Along with the forward's 6 scores on debut, Ireland has netted eight in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a hat-trick in one match up front.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Division with three victories from three and a goal difference of +19.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced former Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young boy who Heskey was.
He has appeared at two global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as playing in more than 200 top-flight games.
"The news was spreading like a rumor they had these former top-flight players," said Barrow.
"I think I was a bit awestruck playing against him to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has 60-odd English appearances.
"We competed well for a solid twenty mins but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.
"We really have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the way home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of normal fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second match."
'We'll Still Take the League'
The manager manages the Collegiate vets side, who secured the Top Division championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.
"Our team went 1-0 ahead and had a