Meet the Sunday Division Squad Featuring 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances
How do you enhance a outstanding experienced squad that have won back-to-back championships, including a double triumph boasting thirty wins from thirty-two matches?
Recruit a collection of ex- professionals who have competed at the elite tier of club football and global soccer as you target additional trophies.
A Manchester club boasts an amateur veterans team with 9 former top-flight footballers in their active lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, 325 Global Appearances
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are located in south the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets League Premier Division.
The squad list this campaign boasts 9 ex- Premier League players, with a combined nearly 1,800 elite games.
This star-studded squad also boasts 222 top division goals and over 320 international caps.
They include Papiss Cisse, who notched 37 goals in 117 games for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in 2012.
He had his first appearance for the team in their last home match versus defending title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six goals in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's team for this season also includes former pros such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the ex- top-flight players have won 15 significant honors and transferred for total transfer fees of approximately £123m.
Household Names and International Stars
Ireland started turning out for the side in pre-season this summer through good mate and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then invited other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side match, to join in.
Ex- Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted 12 goals in sixty-five top-flight games for Everton and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"My friend Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," said the striker.
"Then he told me we were playing a team from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Blue shirts - I thought this is strange for me!
"If you still love the game and you know you can still do it, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"The people who come and watch are pleased and to make a moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us getting a place we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his debut at full-back.
"That's a bit different but then, I love running and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"That movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Dreamlike' Scenario
In addition to the forward's six scores on his first game, Ireland has scored eight in three games for the side, while Boyd hit five on his debut match and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, scored a triple in one match as a striker.
The team are top of the Premier Division with 3 victories from 3 and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced former Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young boy who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at two World Cups for Honduras, in as well as featuring in over 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 bit awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's got over 60 England caps.
"We competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.
"Our group literally have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the journey home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of normal fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the return match."
We Will Still Win the Title'
Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate vets side, who secured the Premier Division title last season, together with his co-manager.
"We went one-nil up and had a