Meet the Weekend League Team Featuring Nearly Two Thousand Premier League Games
How do you improve a outstanding experienced team who have secured consecutive titles, including a double triumph with thirty wins from thirty-two games?
Bring in a group of former pro players who have played at the top tier of club and international football as you aim for more honors.
One Greater Manchester team has an amateur veterans squad with 9 former top-flight players in their present roster.
222 Premier League Goals, 325 International Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are situated in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire Veterans Division Top Tier.
The lineup this campaign includes nine former Premier League footballers, with a total over 1,800 elite appearances.
The star-studded squad also contains 222 top division scores and 325 global caps.
The squad feature one forward, who scored 37 scores in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after signing for them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse had his debut for the team in their last home-field match against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six goals in a six-two win - including a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's roster for this campaign also includes former professionals such as England and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the former top-flight players have secured fifteen significant trophies and moved for total transfer sums of around £123 million.
Household Names and Global Players
Ireland began playing for the team during preseason this season through close mate and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited additional ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek small-sided match, to join in.
Former Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve goals in sixty-five top-flight matches for Everton and even now goes to their home games, also had his first appearance against the opposition - who are located in the city and wear an Everton training kit as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented the striker.
"After that he informed me we were playing a team from the city and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Everton kits - I thought this is wrong for me!
"If you still love football and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"Those spectators who come and watch are happy and to give a moment if they watch us competing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the joy of us having somewhere we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his debut at defender.
"It's a little unusual but then, I enjoy running and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"The running is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Scenario
Along with the forward's 6 goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in 3 appearances for the side, while Boyd scored five on his first appearance and Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a triple in one game up front.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Division with 3 wins from three and a goal difference of +19.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at two World Cups for Honduras, in as well as playing in over two hundred Premier League games.
"It was spreading like wildfire they had these former top-flight players," said Barrow.
"I think I was a little awestruck facing him to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's has over 60 English appearances.
"Our side held our own for a solid twenty mins but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.
"Our group literally have not ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the way home.
"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of regular fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the second match."
'We'll Still Take the Title'
The manager manages the opposition veterans side, who secured the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.
"Our team went one-nil ahead and had a