Meet the Weekend League Squad With Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Games
What do you boost a outstanding veteran side who have won consecutive titles, featuring a double triumph boasting 30 victories from thirty-two matches?
Sign a group of ex- pro players that have performed at the elite level of club and international soccer as you pursue additional silverware.
A Greater Manchester club fields an amateur vets squad with nine former Premier League players in their present roster.
222 Top Division Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps
The team Vets Over 35s are based in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Vets League Premier Division.
Their squad list this season features nine former top-flight footballers, with a total 1,801 Premier League appearances.
This high-profile roster also contains over 220 Premier League goals and over 320 international caps.
They include one forward, who notched 37 scores in 117 appearances for his former club after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home game against defending title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six goals in a six-two victory - including a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's squad for this season also features ex- pros such as England and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the former top-flight footballers have claimed 15 major trophies and moved for combined transfer sums of around £123 million.
Household Names and International Players
Stephen Ireland began playing for the team during pre-season this season through close friend and current team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then asked additional ex-pros, who all play in a midweek small-sided match, to participate.
Ex- Senegalese forward Niasse, who netted twelve scores in 65 Premier League games for Everton and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and use an Blue training kit as their uniform.
"My friend Stephen told me 'come and play, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.
"Then he told me we were facing a side from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Everton shirts - I thought this is strange for me!
"If you still enjoy football and you know you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?
"The spectators who come and watch are happy and to make someone's moment if they see us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the joy of us having somewhere we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the bench strength at the club, Niasse made his first game at defender.
"That's a bit unusual but then, I love running and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"The movement is what I'm seeking. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Feeling
Along with Cisse's six goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Lescott, a defender by position, scored a hat-trick in one match up front.
Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Tier with 3 victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for the opposition, faced former Latics defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young boy who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than 200 top-flight games.
"The news was going round like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League players," remarked Barrow.
"I think I was a little awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's got over 60 English caps.
"Our side held our own for a solid twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.
"We literally have not stopped talking about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the way home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a bunch of normal guys.
"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Take the League'
The manager manages the Collegiate veterans side, who won the Premier Tier championship last season, together with his co-manager.
"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a