Meet the Sunday League Club With Nearly Two Thousand English Top Division Games
What can you boost a stellar veteran team that have secured consecutive championships, including a league-cup double with 30 victories from 32 matches?
Recruit a raft of former professionals who have performed at the elite tier of club and global soccer as you target further silverware.
A Greater Manchester side fields an amateur vets squad with 9 ex- top-flight players in their active roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 Global Appearances
The team Vets Over 35s are based in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Top Tier.
The lineup this season boasts 9 former Premier League players, with a collective over 1,800 top-flight appearances.
This high-profile team also boasts over 220 top division scores and 325 global caps.
The squad feature one forward, who netted thirty-seven goals in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after signing for them for £9m from German league side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match against reigning champions their rivals and netted all six goals in a 6-2 win - featuring a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's roster for this season also features ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- top-flight players have secured fifteen significant honors and moved for total transfer fees of approximately £123m.
Household Figures and Global Stars
Stephen Ireland started playing for the side during preseason this summer through close mate and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side game, to participate.
Ex- Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"A mate Stephen Ireland told me 'come and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were playing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them wearing Blue kits - I say this is strange for me!
"If you still enjoy football and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"The people who come and watch are pleased and to make a moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."
Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he made his debut at full-back.
"That's a bit different but then, I enjoy running and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"The movement is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Feeling
In addition to the forward's 6 scores on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in 3 games for the side, while Boyd hit five on his debut match and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one match as a striker.
The team are leading of the Top Division with 3 wins from three and a goal difference of +19.
One opponent, 38, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced former Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in over two hundred top-flight matches.
"It was going round like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League players," remarked Barrow.
"I felt I was a little awestruck playing against him to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got 60-odd English caps.
"We competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.
"We really haven't ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and sibling on the way home.
"The opponents were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of normal fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
We Will Still Win the League'
Andy Kirby manages the opposition vets team, who won the Top Tier championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.
"We went 1-0 up and had a