Meet the Weekend Division Team With 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances
What do you improve a stellar veteran side who have secured back-to-back championships, featuring a double triumph boasting 30 wins from 32 games?
Recruit a group of ex- pro players that have performed at the elite level of club and global football as you target more honors.
One Manchester team boasts an amateur veterans team with 9 former Premier League footballers in their current squad.
222 Premier League Goals, 325 International Caps
The team Veterans Over 35s are based in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Premier Division.
Their lineup this campaign includes 9 ex- Premier League footballers, with a combined 1,801 elite matches.
The elite squad also includes 222 Premier League goals and over 320 global appearances.
They include Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 scores in 117 games for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in 2012.
He made his first appearance for the team in their last home match versus reigning champions their rivals and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a half-hour opening period hat-trick.
The team for this season also features ex- professionals such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the former Premier League footballers have claimed 15 big trophies and moved for combined transfer sums of around £123m.
Famous Figures and Global Players
Stephen Ireland started playing for the team during pre-season this season through good mate and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then asked additional ex-pros, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side match, to participate.
Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who netted 12 goals in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"My mate Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," commented Niasse.
"After that he told me we were playing a team from the city and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!
"When you still love football 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 make a moment if they see us competing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the squad depth at the club, Niasse made his first game at full-back.
"It's a bit different but then, I enjoy running and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"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 seeking. It's good fun."
Dreamlike' Scenario
Along with the forward's six scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored five on his debut match and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one game as a striker.
The team are leading of the Premier Division with three victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for the opposition, came up against former Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young boy who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at two global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to playing in over two hundred Premier League games.
"The news was spreading like a rumor they had these former top-flight players," remarked the player.
"I think I was a bit awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has over 60 England appearances.
"Our side competed well for a good 20 mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.
"Our group really haven't ceased talking about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the return match."
We Will Still Take the Title'
Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans team, who secured the Top Division title the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a