Discover this Sunday League Club Boasting Over 1,800 Premier League Games
How can you boost a stellar experienced team that have secured consecutive championships, including a league-cup double with thirty wins from thirty-two games?
Bring in a group of former professionals who have played at the elite level of club and international soccer as you aim for more honors.
One Manchester team boasts an amateur veterans team with 9 former Premier League players in their present lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, 325 International Caps
The team Vets Over-35s are located in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire Vets Division Premier Division.
The squad list this season includes 9 ex- Premier League footballers, with a total 1,801 top-flight appearances.
The elite roster also contains over 220 top division scores and over 320 global appearances.
The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who notched 37 goals in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after moving to them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in 2012.
He had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home-field match versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six goals in a 6-2 victory - featuring a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's squad for this campaign also includes former professionals such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the ex- Premier League footballers have secured fifteen major honors and transferred for combined transfer sums of approximately £123 million.
Household Figures and International Players
Ireland started turning out for the team during preseason this summer through good mate and present team player Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then asked additional ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.
Ex- Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five Premier League games for the Toffees and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut against Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Everton training kit as their uniform.
"A mate Stephen Ireland told me 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," said the striker.
"After that he informed me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Blue kits - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still enjoy football and you feel you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"The people who turn up and see are pleased and to make someone's day if they watch us competing there and to pose us questions - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
So great is the strength in depth at the club, Niasse had his first game at defender.
"It's a little unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"That running is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Unreal Feeling
In addition to the forward's 6 goals on his first game, Ireland has scored 8 in three appearances for the side, while Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one match up front.
Wythenshawe are top of the Top Tier with 3 victories from three and a goal difference of +19.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against former Latics defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at 2 World Cups for his country, in addition to featuring in more than two hundred Premier League matches.
"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these former top-flight players," remarked Barrow.
"I felt I was a bit awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got over 60 England caps.
"We held our own for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.
"We literally haven't ceased talking about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the journey home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a group of normal fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
We Will Still Take the Title'
The manager manages the Collegiate vets side, who won the Top Tier championship last season, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a