Introduce this Sunday Division Club Featuring Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Games
What can you boost a excellent experienced squad who have secured consecutive championships, including a double triumph with thirty victories from thirty-two games?
Sign a group of former pro players who have played at the elite level of club and international soccer as you aim for further honors.
A Manchester club fields an non-professional veterans team with 9 former Premier League players in their current lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Caps
Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are located in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Top Tier.
Their roster this season boasts nine ex- top-flight footballers, with a collective over 1,800 top-flight appearances.
This star-studded squad also boasts over 220 top division goals and 325 global appearances.
They include Papiss Cisse, who scored thirty-seven goals in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from German league side SC Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home game against reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six goals in a 6-2 victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's squad for this season also includes ex- pros such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- top-flight footballers have won fifteen big trophies and moved for total transfer fees of about £123m.
Household Names and Global Players
Stephen Ireland began turning out for the team during pre-season this season through good mate and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then invited additional ex-pros, who all play in a weekly small-sided game, to join in.
Former Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve scores in 65 top-flight games for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance against the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and use an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.
"A friend Stephen told me 'come and have a game, it's a laugh'," said the striker.
"Then he informed me we were playing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them wearing Blue kits - I thought this is wrong for me!
"When you still love football and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?
"The fans who turn up and watch are happy and to make someone's moment if they see us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he had his first game at full-back.
"That's a bit unusual but then, I love sprinting and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"That running is what I'm seeking. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Experience
In addition to the forward's six scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in three appearances for the side, while Boyd hit five on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a hat-trick in one game up front.
The team are leading of the Top Tier with three victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young boy who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for Honduras, in addition to featuring in over two hundred Premier League games.
"It was going round like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League players," remarked Barrow.
"I felt I was a little starstruck facing him to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's has over 60 English appearances.
"We held our own for a good twenty mins but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.
"Our group really have not ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and sibling on the journey home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of normal guys.
"Now we can't wait for the return fixture."
'We'll 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 went 1-0 up and had a