Meet the Sunday Division Team Featuring 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances
How do you improve a outstanding veteran side that have claimed back-to-back championships, featuring a double triumph with 30 victories from thirty-two matches?
Sign a raft of former pro players that have competed at the highest tier of club football and international soccer as you pursue additional trophies.
One Greater Manchester team fields an non-professional vets squad with 9 former top-flight footballers in their present squad.
222 Premier League Goals, 325 International Appearances
Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are located in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Premier Tier.
The roster this season features 9 ex- top-flight players, with a collective nearly 1,800 top-flight matches.
The elite roster also includes 222 Premier League goals and over 320 international appearances.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven goals in 117 appearances for his former club after moving to them for £9m from German league side Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse had his debut for the team in their most recent home-field game versus defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six scores in a six-two win - including a half-hour opening period hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's roster for this campaign also features former professionals such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- Premier League footballers have won fifteen significant trophies and moved for total transfer sums of approximately £123m.
Well-Known Figures and Global Stars
Ireland began playing for the side during pre-season this summer through good friend and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then asked other ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to participate.
Former Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve scores in 65 Premier League matches for Everton and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut against the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.
"My friend Stephen Ireland told me 'join and have a game, it's good fun'," said the striker.
"Then he informed me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Everton kits - I say this is strange for me!
"When you still enjoy the game and you know you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?
"Those fans who come and see are happy and to give someone's day if they watch us competing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the joy of us having a place we can play, with organisation of course."
Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his first game at defender.
"That's a little different but then, I enjoy running and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"That running is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Feeling
Along with the forward's six goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in three games for the side, while Boyd scored five on his debut match and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a hat-trick in one match up front.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Tier with 3 victories from 3 and a GD of +19.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Wigan defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.
He has played at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as playing in more than two hundred Premier League matches.
"The news was spreading like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League stars," said Barrow.
"I felt I was a bit awestruck playing against him to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got 60-odd English appearances.
"Our side held our own for a solid twenty mins but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.
"We really have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mum and sibling on the journey home.
"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of normal guys.
"Now we can't wait for the return fixture."
'We'll Still Take the Title'
The manager manages the Collegiate vets team, who won the Top Division title the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team went one-nil ahead and had a