Introduce this Sunday League Club Featuring Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Games
What do you boost a stellar experienced side who have won consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting thirty victories from 32 matches?
Recruit a collection of ex- professionals that have performed at the elite tier of club football and international football as you aim for additional trophies.
A Greater Manchester side fields an amateur veterans team with nine ex- Premier League players in their current lineup.
222 Premier League Scores, 325 International Caps
The team Vets Over 35s are located in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Premier Tier.
The lineup this campaign boasts 9 former top-flight players, with a combined nearly 1,800 elite matches.
This elite team also contains over 220 Premier League scores and over 320 global caps.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who scored thirty-seven scores in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after signing for them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his debut for the team in their most recent home game versus defending title holders their rivals and scored every one of the six goals in a 6-2 win - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick.
The roster for this season also features former pros such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the former Premier League footballers have won fifteen major honors and transferred for total transfer fees of about £123 million.
Well-Known Names and Global Players
Ireland started turning out for the side during pre-season this season through good mate and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other former professionals, who all play in a weekly small-sided game, to join in.
Former Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve goals in sixty-five Premier League games for Everton and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and wear an Everton warm-up gear 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 Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Blue kits - I thought this is wrong for me!
"If you still enjoy the game and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"Those fans who turn up and watch are pleased and to make a day if they watch us playing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."
So great is the strength in depth at the club, Niasse made his debut at defender.
"That's a little unusual but then, I love running and just go forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.
"The movement is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Scenario
In addition to Cisse's six goals on debut, Ireland has netted eight in three games for the side, while Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a triple in one match up front.
The team are leading of the Top Tier with 3 wins from 3 and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as playing in over two hundred Premier League games.
"It was spreading like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League players," remarked Barrow.
"I think I was a bit starstruck facing him to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's got 60-odd England appearances.
"We held our own for a solid 20 mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.
"We literally have not ceased 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 match - it was like facing a group of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the second match."
'We'll Still Win the Title'
The manager manages the Collegiate veterans side, who won the Top Tier championship last season, together with Paul Maguire.
"We scored one-nil up and had a