Discover this Sunday League Squad Boasting 1,800 Premier League Games
How can you improve a stellar veteran side that have claimed back-to-back titles, including a league-cup double boasting thirty wins from thirty-two matches?
Sign a group of ex- pro players that have played at the highest tier of club and international soccer as you pursue further silverware.
One Manchester club has an amateur vets team with nine former top-flight players in their active roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, 325 International Appearances
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are located in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire Veterans Division Top Tier.
The roster this season features 9 former top-flight players, with a collective nearly 1,800 elite games.
The elite squad also boasts over 220 Premier League goals and over 320 global appearances.
The squad feature one forward, who netted thirty-seven scores in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He made his debut for the team in their last home-field match versus defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's roster for this season also features ex- pros such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the former Premier League footballers have won fifteen major trophies and moved for total transfer sums of approximately £123 million.
Well-Known Names and International Players
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the side in pre-season this season through close friend and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited additional former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to participate.
Ex- Senegalese striker Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 top-flight matches for the Toffees and still attends their home games, also had his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.
"A mate Stephen Ireland said 'come and play, it's a laugh'," said the striker.
"Then he told me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Blue shirts - I say this is strange for me!
"When you still enjoy football and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"The spectators who come and see are happy and to make someone's moment if they watch us competing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us getting a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
Such is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at defender.
"That's a bit unusual but then, I love sprinting and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"That movement is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
Unreal Feeling
Along with the forward's 6 scores on debut, Ireland has scored 8 in 3 games for the side, while Boyd hit five on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one match as a striker.
Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Division with 3 victories from three and a GD of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against former Latics full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.
He has appeared at two global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as playing in more than two hundred top-flight games.
"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League players," said Barrow.
"I felt I was a bit starstruck playing against him to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has 60-odd England caps.
"Our side competed well for a solid 20 mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.
"We really haven't stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the journey home.
"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a bunch of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the second match."
We Will Still Take the Title'
The manager coaches the opposition vets team, who won the Premier Tier championship last season, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team scored 1-0 ahead and had a