Discover the Sunday League Club With 1,800 Premier League Matches
What do you boost a stellar veteran squad who have won consecutive titles, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 victories from 32 matches?
Recruit a collection of ex- professionals that have performed at the elite tier of club and global football as you pursue more honors.
One Manchester club fields an amateur vets team with 9 ex- Premier League players in their active squad.
222 Premier League Scores, 325 Global Appearances
The team Vets Over-35s are located in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Veterans Division Premier Division.
The squad list this campaign boasts nine former Premier League players, with a combined over 1,800 top-flight matches.
This star-studded team also includes over 220 top division scores and 325 global appearances.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven goals in over 100 appearances for his former club after moving to them for £9m from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He made his first appearance for the team in their last home-field game versus defending title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - featuring a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's roster for this campaign also includes former pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- top-flight players have secured fifteen big honors and moved for combined transfer sums of about £123 million.
Famous Names and Global Players
Ireland began playing for the side during preseason this summer through close mate and present team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked additional former professionals, who all compete in a midweek small-sided match, to participate.
Former Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 scores in sixty-five Premier League matches for the Toffees and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.
"My friend Stephen said 'join and play, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.
"After that he told me we were facing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Blue kits - I thought this is wrong for me!
"If you still love football and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?
"The fans who come and see are pleased and to give someone's day if they watch us competing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the joy of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
So great is the bench strength at the club, Niasse had his first game at full-back.
"It's a little unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"The running is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
Unreal Experience
Along with the forward's six scores on his first game, Ireland has netted 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his debut appearance and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a triple in one match up front.
The team are top of the Top Division with 3 victories from three and a goal difference of +19.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for the opposition, faced former Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young boy 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 going round like wildfire they had all these former top-flight players," said Barrow.
"I think I was a bit starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey came on and he's got 60-odd England caps.
"We competed well for a good 20 minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.
"We literally have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the way home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of regular fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second match."
'We'll Still Take the Title'
The manager manages the Collegiate vets side, who secured the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"We went 1-0 up and had a