Discover this Weekend Division Team Boasting 1,800 English Top Division Matches
How do you enhance a excellent veteran side that have secured back-to-back titles, including a league-cup double with 30 victories from thirty-two matches?
Sign a group of ex- professionals who have competed at the top level of club football and global soccer as you aim for further silverware.
A Greater Manchester side boasts an non-professional veterans squad with nine ex- top-flight players in their active roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Caps
The team Vets Over-35s are located in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire-based Vets League Premier Tier.
Their lineup this season features 9 former Premier League footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 top-flight appearances.
This elite roster also contains over 220 top division scores and 325 global caps.
The squad include one forward, who netted 37 goals in over 100 appearances for his former club after moving to them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in January 2012.
He made his first appearance for the team in their last home game versus defending title holders their rivals and netted every one of the six goals in a six-two win - including a half-hour opening period triple.
The team for this campaign also includes former professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the former Premier League players have secured 15 big honors and moved for combined transfer fees of approximately £123 million.
Famous Figures and Global Stars
Ireland started turning out for the side in pre-season this season through good friend and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then invited additional former professionals, who all play in a weekly small-sided game, to participate.
Former Senegalese forward Niasse, who netted twelve scores in sixty-five top-flight games for Everton and still goes to their home games, also made his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton training kit as their strip.
"A mate Stephen told me 'come and play, it's good fun'," commented the striker.
"After that he told me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Everton shirts - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still love football and you know you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?
"Those spectators who turn up and see are happy and to give a moment if they watch us playing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the joy of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
So great is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, he made his debut at defender.
"That's a little different but then, I enjoy running and just move inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"That movement is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
Unreal Scenario
In addition to the forward's 6 goals on his first game, Ireland has scored 8 in three games for the side, while George Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a triple in one match up front.
Wythenshawe are top of the Top Division with 3 victories from three and a GD of +19.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for the opposition, came up against former Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.
He has played at two global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as playing in over 200 Premier League games.
"The news was spreading like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League players," said Barrow.
"I think I was a little starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's has over 60 English caps.
"We competed well for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player sent off and it was tough.
"We literally have not ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the way home.
"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of regular guys.
"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby coaches the opposition veterans side, who secured the Premier Tier championship last season, along with his co-manager.
"We went one-nil ahead and had a