Discover this Sunday League Club With 1,800 Premier League Games
How do you enhance a outstanding veteran squad that have secured back-to-back titles, including a league-cup double boasting thirty wins from 32 games?
Sign a group of ex- professionals who have performed at the top tier of club and international soccer as you target additional honors.
One Greater Manchester club boasts an non-professional veterans squad with nine ex- Premier League footballers in their current squad.
222 Top Division Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Caps
Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are located in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire Vets League Top Tier.
Their roster this season features 9 former Premier League footballers, with a total 1,801 Premier League matches.
The star-studded roster also contains 222 top division goals and over 320 international caps.
The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who notched 37 scores in 117 games for his former club after moving to them for £9m from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home match versus reigning champions their rivals and netted every one of the six scores in a six-two win - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.
The roster for this campaign also includes former professionals such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the former Premier League players have claimed fifteen big trophies and moved for combined transfer sums of about £123m.
Well-Known Figures and International Stars
Stephen Ireland began playing for the side during pre-season this season through good friend and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then asked additional ex-pros, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.
Former Senegalese forward Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five top-flight games for Everton and even now attends their home games, also had his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their strip.
"A mate Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," said the striker.
"Then he informed me we were playing a team from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Blue shirts - I say this is wrong for me!
"If you still love the game and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"Those people who turn up and watch are pleased and to give a moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the joy of us getting somewhere we can play, with structure of course."
Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he had his first game at defender.
"It's a bit different but then, I love running and just move inside - I'm not staying back that much," he added.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.
"That running is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."
Unreal Feeling
In addition to Cisse's 6 goals on debut, Ireland has scored 8 in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a triple in one match up front.
The team are top of the Top Division with three victories from 3 and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the flank for the opposition, faced former Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young son who Emile Heskey was.
He has appeared at two World Cups for Honduras, in addition to featuring in more than two hundred Premier League matches.
"It was spreading like a rumor they had these former top-flight stars," remarked Barrow.
"I felt I was a little awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's has over 60 England appearances.
"Our side held our own for a solid twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.
"Our group literally haven't ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the way home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of regular fellas.
"Now we are eager for the return fixture."
'We'll Still Win the League'
Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans side, who secured the Top Tier championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.
"We scored one-nil up and had a