Meet the Sunday League Team Featuring Nearly Two Thousand English Top Division Appearances
How can you enhance a excellent veteran team who have secured consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph boasting 30 wins from thirty-two matches?
Sign a collection of ex- professionals who have played at the highest level of club and global soccer as you target further silverware.
A Greater Manchester club has an non-professional veterans team with nine former Premier League footballers in their current squad.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, 325 Global Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are based in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Premier Division.
The roster this season includes 9 ex- top-flight footballers, with a collective over 1,800 Premier League games.
This high-profile squad also includes 222 top division scores and over 320 international appearances.
The squad feature one forward, who netted 37 goals in 117 games for Newcastle United after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club Freiburg in 2012.
He made his debut for the team in their most recent home match against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.
The roster for this campaign also features ex- pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the former Premier League footballers have claimed 15 major honors and moved for combined transfer fees of about £123 million.
Well-Known Names and Global Players
Ireland started playing for the side in preseason this summer through close friend and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited additional ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side match, to join in.
Former Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 scores in sixty-five top-flight matches for the Toffees and still attends their home games, also had his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and wear an Blue training kit as their strip.
"A friend Stephen Ireland said 'join and have a game, it's good fun'," commented the striker.
"Then he informed me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the surprise 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 choose?
"The spectators who turn up and see are happy and to give someone's moment if they see us competing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."
So great is the bench strength at the club, he made his debut at defender.
"It's a little unusual but then, I love running and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"The running is what I'm after. It's good fun."
'Surreal Experience
Along with the forward's six goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in three appearances for the side, while Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a hat-trick in one game up front.
The team are leading of the Top Division with three wins from 3 and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against former Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at two global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to featuring in more than 200 top-flight games.
"It was going round like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League players," said the player.
"I think I was a little awestruck playing against him to be honest.
"Even Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd England appearances.
"We competed well for a good twenty minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
"We literally have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the way home.
"The opponents were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of normal fellas.
"Now we are eager for the return match."
We Will Still Take the League'
The manager coaches the opposition veterans team, who won the Premier Tier title the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.
"Our team scored 1-0 ahead and had a