Meet the Sunday League Team Boasting Over 1,800 English Top Division Appearances
How can you enhance a outstanding experienced team who have won consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph with 30 wins from 32 matches?
Sign a raft of ex- professionals that have played at the highest level of club football and international soccer as you pursue more trophies.
A Greater Manchester side fields an non-professional vets team with 9 former Premier League footballers in their active lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 International Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are situated in southern the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Top Division.
Their lineup this campaign features 9 former top-flight footballers, with a total 1,801 Premier League appearances.
This high-profile team also boasts 222 top division goals and 325 international appearances.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 scores in 117 games for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his first appearance for the team in their last home match versus defending title holders their rivals and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - including a half-hour opening period hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's team for this campaign also features ex- pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the former top-flight players have secured 15 big honors and moved for total transfer sums of about ÂŁ123 million.
Famous Names and Global Stars
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team during pre-season this season through close mate and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to join in.
Ex- Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve scores in 65 top-flight games for the Toffees and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.
"A mate Stephen Ireland told me 'come and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented the striker.
"Then he informed me we were playing a side from the city and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Blue shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!
"When you still love the game and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?
"Those people who turn up and watch are pleased and to give someone's day if they watch us competing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the joy of us having a place we can play, with organisation of course."
So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he had his first game at full-back.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"That running is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Unreal Feeling
In addition to Cisse's 6 scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in three games for the side, while George Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
The team are top of the Top Tier with three victories from three and a goal difference of +19.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young boy who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at 2 global tournaments for his country, in as well as playing in over two hundred top-flight matches.
"It was going round like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League players," said the player.
"I felt I was a little awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd English caps.
"Our side competed well for a solid 20 mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"We literally have not stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the journey home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of regular fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the return fixture."
We Will Still Win the Title'
Andy Kirby coaches the opposition vets side, who secured the Top Division championship last season, along with his co-manager.
"We scored one-nil up and had a