Meet the Sunday League Team Boasting 1,800 English Top Division Matches
What do you enhance a outstanding experienced team who have claimed consecutive titles, including a double triumph with thirty victories from 32 matches?
Bring in a group of ex- professionals who have performed at the elite level of club and international football as you aim for more trophies.
A Manchester club boasts an amateur vets team with 9 former Premier League footballers in their current lineup.
222 Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps
Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are located in south the city and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Top Division.
The squad list this season boasts nine former Premier League players, with a combined over 1,800 elite appearances.
This star-studded team also boasts over 220 top division goals and 325 international appearances.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 scores in 117 appearances for his former club after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga club Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse made his debut for the team in their most recent home-field match versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six scores in a 6-2 win - including a half-hour opening period hat-trick.
The team for this campaign also features ex- pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the former top-flight players have won fifteen major trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of around £123 million.
Household Names and Global Stars
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team during pre-season this season through good mate and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then asked other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side game, to join in.
Former Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve goals in 65 top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.
"My friend Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," said Niasse.
"Then he told me we were facing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Blue kits - I thought this is wrong for me!
"When you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"The fans who come and see are happy and to give a moment if they see us competing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
So great is the bench strength at the club, Niasse made his debut 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 keep attacking.
"The running is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
Unreal Feeling
Along with Cisse's six scores on debut, Ireland has netted 8 in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one match up front.
The team are leading of the Top Division with 3 wins from three and a goal difference of +19.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for the opposition, faced former Wigan full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young boy who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at two World Cups for Honduras, in as well as featuring in over 200 top-flight games.
"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these former top-flight stars," said the player.
"I think I was a little starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd English appearances.
"We competed well for a solid 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"We really haven't ceased talking about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the journey home.
"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of regular guys.
"Now we can't wait for the second match."
'We'll Still Take the Title'
Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans side, who won the Top Division championship last season, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a