Discover the Sunday League Squad With 1,800 Premier League Appearances
What do you improve a stellar experienced side who have claimed consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph with thirty wins from 32 games?
Recruit a raft of ex- professionals that have played at the highest level of club football and global soccer as you target additional trophies.
One Manchester club has an amateur veterans squad with nine ex- Premier League footballers in their present squad.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, 325 International Caps
The team Veterans Over 35s are situated in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Premier Division.
Their roster this campaign boasts 9 former top-flight players, with a combined 1,801 top-flight games.
This star-studded team also includes over 220 top division scores and over 320 international caps.
The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who scored thirty-seven scores in 117 games for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse made his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match versus reigning champions their rivals and netted every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - featuring a half-hour first-half hat-trick.
The roster for this campaign also features former pros such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the former top-flight players have secured 15 big trophies and moved for combined transfer sums of about £123 million.
Well-Known Figures and Global Stars
Ireland started playing for the team in pre-season this summer through good mate and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then asked other ex-pros, who all play in a weekly small-sided match, to participate.
Former Senegal forward Niasse, who netted 12 scores in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut against the opposition - who are located in the city and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.
"A friend Stephen said 'join and play, it's enjoyable'," commented Niasse.
"Then he informed me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I say this is strange for me!
"If you still enjoy football and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?
"Those spectators who turn up and watch are pleased and to give a day if they see us playing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his first game at defender.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I love running and just go forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"The running is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Unreal Experience
Along with the forward's six goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in 3 appearances for the side, while Boyd hit five on his debut match and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, notched a triple in one game up front.
The team are top of the Top Tier with 3 victories from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young son who Emile Heskey was.
He has appeared at two World Cups for his country, in addition to playing in more than two hundred top-flight games.
"The news was spreading like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League stars," said the player.
"I felt I was a little starstruck facing him to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has over 60 English caps.
"We competed well for a good 20 mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.
"We really haven't stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home.
"The opponents were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of regular guys.
"Now we are eager for the return fixture."
'We'll Still Win the Title'
The manager manages the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Premier Tier title last season, along with his co-manager.
"We scored 1-0 up and had a