Meet the Sunday League Squad With Over 1,800 English Top Division Appearances
What do you enhance a excellent veteran team who have won consecutive titles, featuring a league-cup double with thirty victories from 32 matches?
Sign a group of former pro players that have played at the elite level of club and international soccer as you target more honors.
A Greater Manchester club boasts an amateur vets squad with 9 former top-flight footballers in their present squad.
222 Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Caps
Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are situated in south the city and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Premier Tier.
Their squad list this campaign includes 9 former top-flight footballers, with a total 1,801 top-flight games.
This star-studded squad also boasts over 220 top division scores and over 320 global caps.
They include Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven goals in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after signing for them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse made his debut for the team in their most recent home match versus defending title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - including a 32-minute opening period triple.
The team for this season also features former pros such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- top-flight footballers have secured 15 major trophies and transferred for combined transfer fees of approximately £123 million.
Household Names and Global Players
Stephen Ireland began turning out for the side in pre-season this summer through close friend and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then asked additional ex-pros, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side match, to join in.
Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Everton training kit as their strip.
"A mate Stephen Ireland told me 'join and play, it's a laugh'," commented Niasse.
"Then he informed me we were facing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them wearing Everton shirts - I thought this is strange for me!
"When you still enjoy football and you know you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?
"Those people who turn up and see are pleased and to give someone's day if they see us competing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the joy of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
Such is the squad depth at the club, Niasse had his debut at full-back.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I tell my defender '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 Cisse's six scores on his first game, Ireland has netted 8 in three games for the side, while George Boyd scored 5 on his first appearance and Lescott, a defender by position, scored a hat-trick in one match as a striker.
Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Division with 3 victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.
He has appeared at two global tournaments for his country, in addition to playing in more than two hundred Premier League games.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League stars," said Barrow.
"I think I was a bit awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has over 60 English caps.
"Our side competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.
"Our group really haven't stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and sibling on the journey home.
"The opponents were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of regular guys.
"Now we can't wait for the return fixture."
We Will Still Win the League'
The manager coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Top Tier championship the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.
"Our team scored one-nil ahead and had a