Meet the Weekend League Club With 1,800 Premier League Appearances
What do you enhance a excellent veteran side who have won back-to-back titles, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 wins from 32 matches?
Recruit a group of ex- pro players that have played at the highest tier of club and international football as you target more trophies.
A Greater Manchester team has an amateur veterans team with nine former top-flight footballers in their current squad.
222 Premier League Scores, 325 International Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are situated in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire Veterans League Premier Division.
The roster this season includes nine ex- Premier League footballers, with a combined over 1,800 Premier League games.
The high-profile roster also includes over 220 top division goals and over 320 global appearances.
The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who scored thirty-seven goals in over 100 games for Newcastle United after moving to them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse made his debut for the team in their last home-field game against defending title holders their rivals and scored every one of the six goals in a six-two victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half triple.
The roster for this campaign also includes ex- professionals such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the ex- top-flight players have won 15 major honors and transferred for total transfer sums of about £123 million.
Well-Known Figures and International Stars
Ireland started playing for the team during pre-season this summer through good friend and present team player Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a weekly small-sided match, to join in.
Ex- Senegal striker Niasse, who scored twelve goals in 65 top-flight matches for Everton and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut against Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their strip.
"My friend Stephen told me 'join and play, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.
"Then he informed me we were facing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them wearing Everton shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!
"When you still enjoy the game and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"Those spectators who come and watch are happy and to make a day if they watch us playing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the joy of us getting a place we can play, with structure of course."
Such is the bench strength at the club, Niasse had his first game at defender.
"That's a little unusual but then, I love sprinting and just go forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"The running is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Experience
In addition to Cisse's 6 goals on his first game, Ireland has scored eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored five on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a triple in one game up front.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Division with three wins from three and a GD of plus nineteen.
One opponent, 38, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced former Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young son who Heskey was.
He has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in more than two hundred top-flight matches.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had all these former top-flight stars," remarked Barrow.
"I think I was a little starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Heskey got on and he's got 60-odd English caps.
"Our side competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.
"We literally haven't ceased talking about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the journey home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of regular fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
We Will Still Win the Title'
Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans team, who won the Top Tier championship last season, together with his co-manager.
"We scored one-nil up and had a