Discover this Sunday League Team With Over 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances

How do you improve a excellent veteran team who have claimed consecutive titles, including a double triumph with 30 victories from thirty-two games?

Sign a raft of ex- pro players that have competed at the highest level of club and international football as you target more silverware.

A Greater Manchester side boasts an amateur vets team with 9 former top-flight footballers in their current squad.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, 325 International Caps

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

The roster this season boasts nine ex- Premier League players, with a collective over 1,800 elite matches.

The star-studded team also boasts 222 top division goals and over 320 international appearances.

They include one forward, who scored 37 goals in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in 2012.

He made his first appearance for the team in their most recent home-field game against reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six goals in a 6-2 win - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's team for this campaign also includes former pros such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the ex- top-flight footballers have claimed fifteen significant honors and moved for combined transfer fees of about £123m.

Household Names and International Players

Ireland started turning out for the team during pre-season this season through good friend and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then asked additional ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side match, to join in.

Ex- Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve scores in 65 top-flight games for Everton and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their uniform.

"My friend Stephen Ireland said 'come and have a game, it's a laugh'," said Niasse.

"Then he told me we were playing a team from the city and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Everton kits - I thought this is strange for me!

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

"Those people who come and see are pleased and to give a moment if they see us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the joy of us getting somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."

Such is the bench strength at the club, Niasse made his first game at defender.

"It's a bit different but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.

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

"That running is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."

'Surreal Feeling

In addition to Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Ireland has scored eight in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one game as a striker.

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

One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against former Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.

He has appeared at two World Cups for Honduras, in addition to featuring in over two hundred top-flight games.

"It was going round like a rumor they had all these former top-flight players," said the player.

"I think I was a bit starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.

"Also Heskey got on and he's got over 60 England caps.

"Our side held our own for a solid 20 mins but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.

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

"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a bunch of normal fellas.

"Now we are eager for the second fixture."

'We'll Still Win the Title'

The manager manages the opposition vets team, who secured the Premier Tier title last season, together with his co-manager.

"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a