Meet the Weekend Division Squad With Nearly Two Thousand Premier League Games
What do you enhance a stellar veteran side that have secured consecutive titles, including a league-cup double boasting 30 victories from thirty-two games?
Bring in a raft of ex- professionals that have competed at the top level of club football and global soccer as you pursue further silverware.
One Greater Manchester team boasts an amateur vets squad with 9 ex- top-flight players in their current lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, 325 International Caps
The team Veterans Over 35s are situated in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Vets League Top Division.
Their lineup this season includes 9 former Premier League footballers, with a total 1,801 top-flight matches.
This elite roster also contains over 220 top division scores and 325 international caps.
The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven goals in 117 games for his former club after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.
He had his debut for the team in their most recent home-field game versus reigning champions their rivals and netted all six scores in a six-two victory - including a half-hour opening period hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's squad for this season also features ex- professionals such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- top-flight footballers have won fifteen major honors and transferred for combined transfer fees of around £123m.
Famous Names and International Players
Ireland started turning out for the side in pre-season this summer through good mate and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then invited other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly small-sided match, to participate.
Former Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve scores in sixty-five Premier League matches for Everton and still attends their home games, also had his debut against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"A friend Stephen told me 'come and have a game, it's a laugh'," commented Niasse.
"Then he informed me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Everton kits - I say this is strange for me!
"If you still love football and you know you can still play, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"Those fans who come and see are happy and to make someone's day if they see us playing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."
Such is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, he had his first game at defender.
"That's a little different but then, I love running and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"That running is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Feeling
In addition to the forward's 6 scores on debut, Ireland has netted eight in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his debut match and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
Wythenshawe are top of the Top Division with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the flank for the opposition, faced former Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young boy who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in more than two hundred Premier League matches.
"It was spreading like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League players," remarked the player.
"I felt I was a bit starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Heskey came on and he's got 60-odd England appearances.
"We competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"Our group literally haven't stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the way home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a bunch of normal fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."
We Will Still Win the League'
The manager manages the Collegiate vets side, who secured the Top Division championship last season, together with Paul Maguire.
"We went 1-0 up and had a