Meet this Weekend League Club Featuring 1,800 English Top Division Appearances

How do you enhance a stellar veteran side that have secured back-to-back championships, including a league-cup double boasting thirty wins from thirty-two matches?

Recruit a raft of former professionals who have performed at the top tier of club and global football as you aim for further silverware.

One Greater Manchester side boasts an non-professional vets squad with nine ex- top-flight players in their active roster.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, 325 Global Appearances

The team Vets Over-35s are based in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Top Division.

The roster this season boasts 9 former top-flight players, with a collective nearly 1,800 Premier League games.

This elite roster also boasts 222 top division goals and over 320 global appearances.

The squad include one forward, who notched thirty-seven goals in 117 appearances for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in 2012.

He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home match versus reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six scores in a 6-2 win - featuring a half-hour opening period hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's squad for this season also includes former professionals such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the former Premier League players have claimed 15 major honors and transferred for combined transfer sums of around £123 million.

Well-Known Figures and International Players

Stephen Ireland began turning out for the side in pre-season this season through good mate and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked additional former professionals, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to participate.

Ex- Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve goals in 65 Premier League games for Everton and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance versus the opposition - who are located in the city and wear an Blue training kit as their uniform.

"A mate Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented Niasse.

"After that he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Blue kits - I say this is strange for me!

"When you still love football and you feel you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?

"The fans who turn up and watch are pleased and to make someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

So great is the bench strength at the club, Niasse made his debut at defender.

"That's a little unusual but then, I love running and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.

"That movement is what I'm seeking. It's enjoyable."

'Surreal Feeling

In addition to the forward's 6 goals on his first game, Ireland has netted 8 in three appearances for the side, while George Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a hat-trick in one game as a striker.

Wythenshawe are top of the Top Tier with 3 victories from 3 and a goal difference of +19.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Latics defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.

He has appeared at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than two hundred Premier League matches.

"The news was going round like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League players," said the player.

"I think I was a bit awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.

"Also Heskey got on and he's got 60-odd English caps.

"Our side competed well for a good 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.

"We literally have not stopped talking about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.

"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a group of normal fellas.

"Now we can't wait for the return match."

'We'll Still Take the Title'

The manager manages the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.

"Our team went one-nil ahead and had a