Meet the Weekend Division Squad Boasting 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances
What can you improve a stellar veteran squad that have won consecutive championships, including a double triumph with 30 victories from thirty-two games?
Sign a group of ex- professionals who have competed at the highest tier of club football and global football as you aim for further honors.
One Greater Manchester club has an non-professional vets team with 9 ex- Premier League players in their active lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 International Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are based in south the city and play in the Cheshire Veterans Division Premier Tier.
The roster this campaign features nine ex- Premier League footballers, with a collective nearly 1,800 top-flight games.
The star-studded team also contains 222 top division goals and over 320 global appearances.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 scores in 117 appearances for his former club after joining them for £9m from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse had his debut for the team in their most recent home-field match versus reigning title holders their rivals and scored all six goals in a six-two win - featuring a 32-minute opening period triple.
Wythenshawe's team for this season also features ex- pros such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- top-flight footballers have secured 15 major honors and moved for combined transfer fees of about £123 million.
Famous Names and International Players
Ireland started playing for the side in pre-season this summer through good friend and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to join in.
Former Senegal forward Niasse, who scored 12 goals in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance versus the opposition - who are based in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.
"A friend Stephen told me 'join and play, it's good fun'," commented the striker.
"Then he told me we were facing a team from the city and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Blue shirts - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still love the game and you know you can still play, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"The people who come and see are happy and to give someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the joy of us getting somewhere we can play, with structure of course."
Such is the bench strength at the club, he had his first game at full-back.
"That's a little unusual but then, I love sprinting and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"That movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Unreal Scenario
In addition to Cisse's six scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Tier with 3 wins from three and a GD of plus nineteen.
One opponent, 38, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against former Latics full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young boy who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at two World Cups for Honduras, in as well as featuring in over two hundred Premier League games.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had all these former top-flight stars," said the player.
"I think I was a little awestruck playing against him to be honest.
"Even Heskey came on and he's got 60-odd English caps.
"We competed well for a solid twenty mins but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.
"We literally have not stopped talking about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the way home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a bunch of normal fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second match."
We Will Still Win the Title'
The manager manages the Collegiate vets side, who secured the Top Tier championship last season, together with Paul Maguire.
"Our team went 1-0 up and had a