Discover this Weekend Division Team Boasting Nearly Two Thousand English Top Division Matches
What do you enhance a stellar experienced side that have won back-to-back titles, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 wins from 32 matches?
Sign a raft of ex- professionals who have played at the highest tier of club football and global soccer as you aim for more trophies.
A Manchester club has an amateur vets team with nine former top-flight players in their current roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, 325 International Appearances
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are situated in southern the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets League Top Division.
Their lineup this season features nine ex- Premier League players, with a collective nearly 1,800 Premier League matches.
The elite roster also contains over 220 Premier League scores and over 320 global appearances.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven goals in 117 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for nine million pounds from German league side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He made his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home game against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - featuring a half-hour first-half triple.
Wythenshawe's squad for this season also includes former pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- Premier League players have claimed 15 significant trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of approximately £123m.
Famous Names and Global Players
Ireland began playing for the side in preseason this season through good mate and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked additional former professionals, who all compete in a midweek small-sided match, to participate.
Ex- Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted twelve scores in 65 top-flight games for Everton and still attends their home games, also made his first appearance versus the opposition - who are located in the city and wear an Blue training kit as their strip.
"A friend Stephen said 'come and play, it's enjoyable'," said the striker.
"After that he informed me we were facing a side from the city and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Everton shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!
"When you still love the game and you know you can still play, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"Those fans who turn up and watch are happy and to give someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the joy of us getting a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
So great is the strength in depth at the club, Niasse made his debut at full-back.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"That running is what I'm seeking. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Feeling
Along with the forward's six goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his first appearance and Lescott, a defender by position, scored a triple in one match up front.
The team are leading of the Premier Tier with three wins from 3 and a goal difference of +19.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young boy who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as featuring in over two hundred Premier League games.
"The news was spreading like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League stars," remarked Barrow.
"I think I was a little starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd England appearances.
"Our side competed well for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"We really haven't stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the way home.
"The opponents were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
We Will Still Win the Title'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate veterans side, who won the Premier Tier title last season, together with Paul Maguire.
"Our team scored one-nil ahead and had a