Discover this Weekend League Squad Featuring 1,800 Top-Flight Games
How can you improve a stellar experienced squad that have won back-to-back championships, including a league-cup double with thirty victories from 32 games?
Recruit a raft of ex- pro players that have competed at the elite level of club and international soccer as you aim for further trophies.
One Manchester side has an amateur veterans team with 9 former top-flight players in their active roster.
222 Premier League Goals, 325 Global Caps
The team Vets Over 35s are based in southern the city and play in the Cheshire Veterans Division Premier Tier.
Their roster this season boasts 9 former top-flight players, with a combined over 1,800 elite appearances.
The high-profile squad also includes over 220 Premier League goals and over 320 international appearances.
The squad feature one forward, who netted 37 goals in over 100 appearances for his former club after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in 2012.
He made his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field match versus reigning title holders their rivals and scored all six goals in a six-two victory - including a half-hour first-half triple.
The squad for this campaign also features ex- pros such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the ex- top-flight footballers have won fifteen major trophies and moved for total transfer fees of around £123m.
Household Figures and Global Players
Ireland began turning out for the team during pre-season this season through close friend and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited additional former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to join in.
Ex- Senegalese forward Niasse, who scored 12 scores in 65 Premier League matches for the Toffees and still attends their home games, also had his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton training kit as their uniform.
"A friend Stephen said 'come and play, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them wearing Blue shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!
"If you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"The spectators who turn up and watch are pleased and to make a moment if they see us competing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the joy of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
So great is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his debut at defender.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy running and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"The running is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
'Surreal Scenario
Along with Cisse's six scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in 3 appearances for the side, while Boyd scored five on his first appearance and Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a triple in one game up front.
The team are top of the Top Division with 3 wins from three and a GD of plus nineteen.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for the opposition, faced former Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.
He has appeared at two World Cups for Honduras, in addition to featuring in more than 200 Premier League games.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had all these former top-flight stars," remarked the player.
"I think I was a bit awestruck playing against him to be honest.
"Even Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd England appearances.
"Our side competed well for a solid 20 minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.
"We literally haven't ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the way home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of regular guys.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Take the Title'
Andy Kirby coaches the opposition vets team, who won the Top Division championship the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.
"We went one-nil ahead and had a