Meet the Sunday League Club With 1,800 Premier League Matches
How can you improve a excellent veteran side that have secured consecutive titles, featuring a league-cup double boasting thirty wins from thirty-two matches?
Recruit a collection of former pro players that have played at the top level of club football and international football as you pursue more silverware.
A Manchester side boasts an non-professional vets team with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their current squad.
222 Premier League Scores, 325 International Appearances
Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are based in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Premier Tier.
The squad list this season boasts 9 ex- top-flight players, with a combined 1,801 elite matches.
This high-profile roster also includes over 220 top division scores and 325 international caps.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 goals in over 100 appearances for his former club after moving to them for £9m from German league side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home game against reigning title holders their rivals and scored all six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's squad for this season also features ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- Premier League footballers have claimed fifteen big trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of around £123 million.
Household Figures and Global Players
Stephen Ireland began playing for the side during preseason this season through good mate and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side game, to join in.
Ex- Senegal striker Niasse, who scored 12 scores in sixty-five Premier League matches for the Toffees and even now goes to their home games, also had his debut against the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and use an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"My mate Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Everton kits - I say this is strange for me!
"If you still enjoy football and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?
"The people who come and see are happy and to give a day if they see us playing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
So great is the strength in depth at the club, he made his debut at defender.
"That's a little different but then, I love sprinting and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"The running is what I'm after. It's good fun."
'Surreal Experience
In addition to Cisse's six scores on his first game, Ireland has scored 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored five on his first appearance and Lescott, a defender by position, notched a triple in one game as a striker.
The team are leading of the Top Tier with 3 wins from three and a GD of +19.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.
He has appeared at 2 World Cups for his country, in addition to playing in more than two hundred Premier League games.
"It was going round like a rumor they had these former top-flight stars," said Barrow.
"I felt I was a bit awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Heskey got on and he's has 60-odd England appearances.
"Our side held our own for a good 20 minutes but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.
"Our group really have not ceased talking about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the journey home.
"The opponents were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of regular guys.
"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."
We Will Still Win the League'
The manager coaches the Collegiate vets side, who secured the Top Tier title last season, together with his co-manager.
"We scored one-nil ahead and had a