Introduce the Weekend Division Squad Boasting Over 1,800 Top-Flight Games
What do you improve a stellar veteran team that have secured consecutive titles, featuring a double triumph boasting 30 wins from thirty-two matches?
Bring in a collection of former pro players that have competed at the highest level of club football and global football as you target additional trophies.
A Manchester team boasts an non-professional vets team with nine former top-flight footballers in their active lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, 325 Global Caps
Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are based in south the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets League Premier Division.
Their roster this season includes nine ex- top-flight footballers, with a collective nearly 1,800 top-flight matches.
The star-studded roster also boasts over 220 Premier League scores and 325 international caps.
The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 goals in over 100 games for his former club after moving to them for £9m from German league side Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse made his debut for the team in their most recent home-field match against reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six scores in a six-two win - featuring a 32-minute opening period triple.
The squad for this campaign also includes ex- professionals such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the ex- Premier League players have secured 15 major honors and moved for combined transfer sums of around £123m.
Household Figures and Global Stars
Stephen Ireland started playing for the team during pre-season this summer through close mate and present team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to participate.
Former Senegalese striker Niasse, who scored 12 scores in sixty-five top-flight games for Everton and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.
"A mate Stephen Ireland said 'come and play, it's good fun'," commented the striker.
"Then he informed me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Blue kits - I say this is strange for me!
"When you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?
"The people who come and watch are happy and to give someone's moment if they see us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the joy of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his first game at full-back.
"That's a bit different but then, I love running and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"The movement is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Experience
In addition to the forward's 6 goals on debut, Ireland has scored eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored five on his first match and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a triple in one game up front.
The team are leading of the Premier Tier with 3 wins from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
One opponent, 38, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at 2 global tournaments for his country, in addition to featuring in over 200 Premier League games.
"It was going round like wildfire they had all these former top-flight players," remarked Barrow.
"I think I was a bit starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Heskey came on and he's got over 60 English appearances.
"We held our own for a solid 20 mins but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
"We really have not stopped talking about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the journey home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of regular fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Take the League'
The manager coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Top Tier championship the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team went 1-0 ahead and had a