Discover this Sunday League Team With 1,800 English Top Division Games
How can you improve a excellent veteran team who have won consecutive titles, featuring a league-cup double with thirty victories from thirty-two games?
Bring in a group of former pro players that have performed at the top level of club football and global football as you target additional honors.
One Manchester team has an non-professional vets squad with nine ex- top-flight footballers in their current squad.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, 325 Global Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are located in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Top Tier.
Their roster this campaign includes 9 former top-flight footballers, with a total 1,801 Premier League games.
This high-profile roster also contains over 220 Premier League scores and over 320 global appearances.
They feature one forward, who notched 37 scores in over 100 games for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse made his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field game against defending title holders their rivals and scored every one of the six goals in a six-two win - including a half-hour opening period triple.
Wythenshawe's team for this season also features ex- professionals such as England and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- Premier League players have secured 15 major trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of around £123 million.
Well-Known Names and Global Stars
Stephen Ireland began playing for the side in preseason this summer through close mate and present 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.
Former Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 Premier League games for Everton and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.
"A mate Stephen said 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," commented the striker.
"Then he told me we were facing a side from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Blue kits - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still love the game and you know you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?
"The spectators who turn up and watch are happy and to make a day if they see us competing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the squad depth at the club, he had his debut at full-back.
"That's a little different but then, I love sprinting and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he added.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"That running is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."
Dreamlike' Scenario
In addition to the forward's six goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his first match and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, notched a triple in one game up front.
Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Division with 3 wins from 3 and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for the opposition, faced former Latics full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young boy who Emile Heskey was.
He has played at two global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to featuring in more than 200 top-flight matches.
"The news was going round like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League players," remarked Barrow.
"I felt I was a bit starstruck facing him to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has 60-odd English appearances.
"Our side held our own for a good twenty minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
"We really haven't stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the way home.
"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of normal fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the return match."
We Will Still Take the League'
The manager coaches the Collegiate vets side, who secured the Premier Division title last season, along with Paul Maguire.
"We scored one-nil ahead and had a