Introduce this Weekend Division Club Featuring Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Games
What can you improve a outstanding experienced team who have won back-to-back titles, featuring a league-cup double boasting thirty victories from 32 matches?
Bring in a collection of former pro players who have competed at the elite tier of club football and international soccer as you aim for more honors.
One Manchester club has an amateur vets team with nine ex- top-flight footballers in their present roster.
222 Top Division Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances
The team Veterans Over-35s are situated in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Premier Division.
Their roster this campaign boasts nine ex- Premier League players, with a collective over 1,800 elite appearances.
This star-studded roster also boasts 222 Premier League scores and over 320 global appearances.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven scores in over 100 appearances for his former club after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted 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 includes ex- pros such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the former top-flight players have claimed 15 big honors and transferred for combined transfer fees of around £123 million.
Household Figures and International Players
Ireland began playing for the team in preseason this season through good mate and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then invited additional former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to join in.
Ex- Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve goals in 65 top-flight games for Everton and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in the city and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.
"A mate Stephen Ireland said 'join and play, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.
"Then he informed me we were playing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Everton shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!
"When you still love football and you know you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?
"The spectators who come and see are happy and to give someone's day if they watch us competing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us getting a place we can play, with structure of course."
Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his first game at defender.
"That's a bit unusual but then, I love sprinting and just go inside - 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 running is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Unreal Feeling
In addition to the forward's 6 goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in 3 games for the side, while Boyd scored 5 on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one game as a striker.
Wythenshawe are top of the Top Division with 3 victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for the opposition, came up against former Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young boy who Heskey was.
He has appeared at two global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as playing in more than 200 Premier League games.
"It was spreading like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League stars," said Barrow.
"I felt I was a little starstruck playing against him to be honest.
"Even Heskey got on and he's got over 60 English caps.
"Our side held our own for a solid twenty mins but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
"We literally haven't stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mother and brother 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 are eager for the second match."
'We'll Still Take the Title'
Andy Kirby manages the opposition vets side, who won the Top Tier championship last season, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team scored 1-0 ahead and had a