Meet this Weekend Division Club Featuring Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Games

How do you enhance a excellent veteran team that have claimed consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double with 30 victories from 32 games?

Recruit a group of ex- professionals that have played at the top tier of club and global football as you pursue more honors.

A Greater Manchester team has an amateur vets team with nine former Premier League footballers in their present roster.

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

The team Veterans Over-35s are located in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Premier Tier.

The lineup this season boasts nine ex- Premier League players, with a combined nearly 1,800 Premier League games.

The high-profile roster also contains over 220 Premier League scores and over 320 international caps.

The squad feature one forward, who netted 37 scores in 117 games for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in 2012.

He had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home game against defending title holders their rivals and netted all six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a half-hour first-half hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's roster for this campaign also includes ex- professionals such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the former Premier League players have won 15 major honors and transferred for total transfer sums of about £123m.

Famous Figures and International Players

Ireland began playing for the team in pre-season this season through close friend and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then asked additional former professionals, who all compete in a weekly small-sided game, to join in.

Former Senegal forward Niasse, who scored twelve goals in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and still attends their home games, also made his debut against Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"My mate Stephen Ireland said 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.

"Then he informed me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Blue kits - I thought this is wrong for me!

"If you still love football and you feel you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?

"The people who come and watch are happy and to give a moment if they see us playing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

Such is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at full-back.

"It's a little unusual but then, I love sprinting and just go forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.

"I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.

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

Dreamlike' Feeling

Along with the forward's 6 goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in three appearances for the side, while George Boyd hit five on his debut appearance and Lescott, a defender by position, notched a triple in one game up front.

Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Division with three victories from three and a goal difference of +19.

One opponent, 38, who plays on the wing for the opposition, came up against ex- Wigan defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at two global tournaments for his country, in as well as playing in more than 200 Premier League games.

"It was going round like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League players," remarked Barrow.

"I felt I was a little starstruck facing him to be honest.

"Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has over 60 England caps.

"Our side competed well for a good 20 mins but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.

"We really haven't ceased talking about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the way home.

"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of normal fellas.

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

'We'll Still Win the League'

The manager manages the opposition veterans side, who secured the Top Division title the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.

"We went one-nil ahead and had a