Discover the Weekend League Team Featuring Over 1,800 English Top Division Matches
What do you improve a excellent veteran squad that have claimed back-to-back titles, including a double triumph boasting thirty victories from 32 matches?
Sign a group of ex- pro players that have competed at the top tier of club football and global football as you pursue additional honors.
One Greater Manchester team fields an non-professional veterans team with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their active roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, 325 Global Caps
The team Vets Over-35s are located in southern the city and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Top Division.
The roster this campaign features nine former Premier League players, with a combined nearly 1,800 top-flight matches.
The star-studded squad also contains 222 top division goals and 325 international caps.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven goals in 117 games for his former club after joining them for Β£9m from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in 2012.
He made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field match versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six goals in a six-two win - featuring a 32-minute opening period triple.
Wythenshawe's roster for this season also includes ex- pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the former top-flight footballers have secured fifteen big honors and moved for combined transfer sums of about Β£123 million.
Household Figures and International Stars
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team during pre-season this summer through close friend and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then invited other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to join in.
Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in sixty-five top-flight games for Everton and still attends their home games, also had his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"My friend Stephen Ireland said 'come and have a game, it's a laugh'," said Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Blue shirts - I thought this is strange for me!
"If you still enjoy the game and you know you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"The spectators who come and watch are pleased and to give someone's moment if they see us competing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he made his first game at defender.
"It's a bit different but then, I love sprinting and just go forward - 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 continue running.
"That movement is what I'm seeking. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Experience
Along with Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in three games for the side, while Boyd hit five on his debut appearance and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a triple in one game as a striker.
The team are leading of the Top Division with three victories from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young boy who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for Honduras, in as well as featuring in more than 200 Premier League games.
"It was spreading like a rumor they had these former top-flight stars," said Barrow.
"I felt I was a little starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has over 60 England caps.
"We competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.
"Our group literally have not stopped talking about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of regular fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the second match."
We Will Still Win the Title'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate vets team, who secured the Premier Division championship last season, along with Paul Maguire.
"We scored 1-0 up and had a