Discover this Sunday League Club Boasting Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Appearances
What do you enhance a excellent veteran squad who have claimed consecutive titles, including a league-cup double with 30 victories from thirty-two matches?
Sign a raft of former professionals that have performed at the highest level of club football and global soccer as you target further honors.
One Greater Manchester side has an non-professional veterans team with 9 ex- top-flight players in their active lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps
The team Veterans Over 35s are situated in south the city and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Premier Division.
The roster this campaign includes nine former Premier League footballers, with a collective nearly 1,800 top-flight games.
This high-profile team also includes 222 top division goals and over 320 international caps.
They include Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven goals in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field game against defending title holders their rivals and scored every one of the six scores in a six-two win - including a half-hour first-half triple.
Wythenshawe's team for this season also features former pros such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the former top-flight players have won 15 big trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of about £123m.
Household Names and Global Players
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the side during pre-season this summer through close mate and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then asked additional ex-pros, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side match, to participate.
Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who scored twelve goals in 65 top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now attends their home games, also made his debut against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton training kit as their strip.
"My friend Stephen Ireland said 'come and play, it's good fun'," said Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were facing a team from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Everton kits - I thought this is strange for me!
"If you still enjoy football and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"Those fans who turn up and see are pleased and to make someone's moment if they watch us competing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the joy of us having somewhere we can play, with structure of course."
Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he made his first game at full-back.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"That running is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
Unreal Feeling
In addition to Cisse's six goals on debut, Ireland has netted 8 in three games for the side, while Boyd scored five on his first match and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a triple in one match as a striker.
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 wing for the opposition, came up against former Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.
He has appeared at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as featuring in more than 200 Premier League matches.
"It was spreading like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League players," remarked Barrow.
"I think I was a little awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has 60-odd English appearances.
"Our side held our own for a good twenty mins but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.
"We really haven't stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the way home.
"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of regular fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the return match."
We Will Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate veterans side, who secured the Top Division championship last season, together with Paul Maguire.
"Our team went 1-0 up and had a