Introduce the Sunday League Team Featuring 1,800 English Top Division Matches
What do you improve a excellent veteran side who have secured back-to-back championships, featuring a league-cup double with 30 victories from 32 matches?
Recruit a group of ex- pro players that have competed at the elite level of club football and international football as you target additional trophies.
One Manchester side boasts an amateur vets team with nine ex- top-flight footballers in their active squad.
222 Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances
The team Vets Over 35s are based in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Veterans Division Top Tier.
Their roster this season includes 9 former top-flight footballers, with a combined nearly 1,800 top-flight games.
This high-profile squad also includes over 220 top division goals and over 320 global caps.
The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who scored thirty-seven scores in 117 games for Newcastle United after moving to them for £9m from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse made his debut for the team in their last home match versus defending title holders their rivals and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.
The team for this season also features former professionals such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- top-flight players have secured fifteen big trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of approximately £123m.
Famous Figures and International Players
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team in pre-season this summer through good mate and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked other ex-pros, who all play in a weekly small-sided match, to participate.
Former Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve scores in 65 top-flight games for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their strip.
"A friend Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented the striker.
"After that he told me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Everton kits - I say this is strange for me!
"If you still love the game and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"The spectators who turn up and see are pleased and to give a day if they watch us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the joy of us getting a place we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his first game at defender.
"It's a bit different but then, I love sprinting and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.
"The movement is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."
Unreal Experience
Along with the forward's six goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in 3 games for the side, while George Boyd hit 5 on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a triple in one match as a striker.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Tier with 3 wins from 3 and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for the opposition, faced ex- Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at two global tournaments for his country, in addition to featuring in over two hundred top-flight games.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League players," remarked Barrow.
"I felt I was a little awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd England appearances.
"We competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"Our group literally haven't stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the journey home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of regular fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the second match."
'We'll Still Win the Title'
Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans team, who won the Top Division championship last season, together with his co-manager.
"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a