Discover the Weekend Division Team Boasting Nearly Two Thousand Premier League Matches
What can you enhance a excellent experienced team that have claimed back-to-back championships, featuring a double triumph with 30 wins from thirty-two games?
Bring in a raft of former pro players who have performed at the top tier of club and international football as you pursue further trophies.
A Manchester team fields an non-professional vets team with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their current roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 International Caps
Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are based in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire-based Vets League Top Division.
The lineup this season boasts 9 former top-flight footballers, with a collective 1,801 top-flight matches.
This elite team also includes 222 top division goals and 325 global caps.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven goals in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse had his first appearance for the team in their last home-field game against defending champions their rivals and netted all six goals in a six-two victory - including a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's roster for this season also features ex- professionals such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- Premier League footballers have claimed 15 big honors and moved for total transfer fees of about £123m.
Well-Known Names and Global Stars
Stephen Ireland started playing for the team during pre-season this summer through good friend and current team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then invited other ex-pros, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.
Ex- Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve scores in 65 Premier League matches for Everton and still attends their home games, also had his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and use an Blue training kit as their strip.
"My friend Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.
"Then he informed me we were playing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Blue shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!
"If you still love football and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"The people who turn up and see are happy and to make someone's day if they see us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."
So great is the bench strength at the club, he made his debut at full-back.
"That's a bit different but then, I enjoy running and just move inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"That movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Unreal Experience
Along with Cisse's six scores on debut, Ireland has scored eight in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored 5 on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one game up front.
The team are leading of the Premier Division with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
One opponent, 38, who features on the flank for the opposition, faced ex- Latics full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than two hundred Premier League games.
"It was spreading like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League players," remarked Barrow.
"I felt I was a bit starstruck playing against him to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's got over 60 English appearances.
"Our side held our own for a good twenty minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
"Our group literally have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home.
"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of regular guys.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Win the League'
The manager manages the opposition veterans team, who secured the Top Division championship the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"We scored 1-0 ahead and had a