Meet the Sunday Division Team Featuring Nearly Two Thousand Premier League Games
What can you improve a stellar veteran squad that have claimed back-to-back championships, featuring a double triumph with thirty wins from 32 games?
Recruit a raft of ex- professionals that have performed at the top tier of club football and international soccer as you aim for further silverware.
A Manchester team fields an amateur vets team with 9 ex- Premier League players in their present lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 Global Appearances
The team Vets Over 35s are located in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Top Tier.
The roster this season features 9 ex- Premier League players, with a collective over 1,800 elite appearances.
The elite roster also includes over 220 Premier League scores and 325 global appearances.
They include Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven goals in over 100 games for his former club after signing for them for nine million pounds from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home game versus reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's squad for this campaign also includes former pros such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- Premier League players have secured 15 significant trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of about £123m.
Household Figures and International Players
Ireland started turning out for the team during preseason this summer through close friend and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked additional ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek small-sided match, to participate.
Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five Premier League matches for the Toffees and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and use an Blue training kit as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen said 'come and play, it's a laugh'," commented Niasse.
"After that he told me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Everton shirts - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still enjoy football and you know you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"Those people who come and see are pleased and to give a moment if they see us playing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."
Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his debut at full-back.
"That's a bit different but then, I love running and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"That running is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Experience
Along with Cisse's six scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in 3 appearances for the side, while Boyd hit five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, scored a hat-trick in one match as a striker.
Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Division with 3 wins from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young son who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to playing in over two hundred top-flight matches.
"It was going round like wildfire they had these former top-flight players," said Barrow.
"I think I was a little starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's got 60-odd England caps.
"We held our own for a solid twenty minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
"We literally haven't stopped talking about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of normal fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the return fixture."
'We'll Still Win the Title'
The manager coaches the opposition vets side, who secured the Top Division title the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.
"Our team went 1-0 ahead and had a