Introduce the Sunday League Club With 1,800 Top-Flight Matches
How do you enhance a excellent experienced squad who have claimed back-to-back championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 victories from thirty-two games?
Sign a group of former pro players who have competed at the elite tier of club and global soccer as you target further trophies.
A Greater Manchester side fields an non-professional vets team with nine ex- top-flight players in their present roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 Global Appearances
The team Veterans Over-35s are based in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire Veterans League Premier Tier.
The squad list this campaign boasts 9 ex- top-flight players, with a collective 1,801 top-flight appearances.
This star-studded squad also includes 222 top division goals and over 320 international appearances.
The squad feature one forward, who netted 37 scores in over 100 games for his former club after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He made his first appearance for the team in their last home-field match versus defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six goals in a 6-2 win - featuring a half-hour first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's squad for this campaign also includes ex- pros such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- Premier League players have won fifteen major trophies and transferred for combined transfer sums of approximately Β£123m.
Household Figures and International Stars
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team in pre-season this season through good mate and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then asked additional former professionals, who all compete in a weekly small-sided match, to join in.
Ex- Senegalese forward Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now attends their home games, also had his debut against the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their strip.
"A mate Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented the striker.
"After that he told me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Blue shirts - I thought this is strange for me!
"If you still enjoy the game 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 watch are happy and to make someone's moment if they watch us competing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his debut at defender.
"That's a little different but then, I love sprinting and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"The movement is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
Unreal Experience
In addition to the forward's six scores on his first game, Ireland has scored 8 in 3 games for the side, while Boyd hit five on his first match and Lescott, a defender by position, scored a triple in one match up front.
Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Tier with three wins from three and a GD of +19.
One opponent, 38, who plays on the flank for the opposition, faced former Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in more than two hundred Premier League matches.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League players," remarked Barrow.
"I think I was a bit starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got 60-odd England appearances.
"Our side held our own for a solid 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"We literally haven't stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the journey home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of normal fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the return fixture."
We Will Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate veterans side, who won the Top Division title the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.
"We went 1-0 up and had a