Discover the Sunday League Club With 1,800 English Top Division Games
What do you improve a stellar veteran side who have claimed consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph with thirty wins from thirty-two games?
Sign a collection of former professionals who have performed at the elite level of club and international football as you aim for further honors.
A Manchester team has an amateur veterans team with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their active lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances
The team Veterans Over 35s are located in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Top Division.
The roster this campaign boasts nine ex- Premier League players, with a collective nearly 1,800 Premier League matches.
This star-studded team also contains 222 top division goals and 325 international caps.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven scores in 117 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse had his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match versus defending champions their rivals and scored all six goals in a 6-2 victory - including a half-hour opening period triple.
The squad for this season also includes ex- pros such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the former Premier League footballers have won fifteen major honors and moved for combined transfer fees of around Β£123 million.
Household Names and International Players
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the side during pre-season this summer through good friend and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all play in a weekly small-sided game, to participate.
Former Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve goals in 65 Premier League games for Everton and even now attends their home games, also made his first appearance against the opposition - who are located in the city and wear an Everton training kit as their uniform.
"A mate Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented the striker.
"After that he informed me we were facing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Blue shirts - I say 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 choose?
"The people who come and see are pleased and to make someone's moment if they see us competing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his first game at defender.
"It's a little unusual but then, I love sprinting and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"The movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."
'Surreal Feeling
Along with Cisse's 6 scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a hat-trick in one game up front.
The team are leading of the Top Tier with 3 victories from three and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for the opposition, faced ex- Latics defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young son who Emile Heskey was.
He has appeared at two World Cups for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than two hundred top-flight matches.
"The news was spreading like wildfire they had all these former top-flight stars," remarked the player.
"I felt I was a little starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey came on and he's got over 60 English caps.
"Our side competed well for a solid 20 mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"We literally have not ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the way home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of regular fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
We Will Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Top Tier title the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.
"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a