Discover the Weekend Division Team Boasting 1,800 Top-Flight Matches
How can you enhance a stellar experienced side that have claimed back-to-back titles, including a double triumph boasting thirty wins from thirty-two games?
Bring in a collection of ex- professionals that have performed at the elite tier of club and global football as you target further trophies.
A Manchester club fields an non-professional veterans squad with nine former top-flight footballers in their current roster.
222 Premier League Goals, 325 International Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are situated in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Top Tier.
The roster this campaign includes nine former top-flight footballers, with a combined nearly 1,800 Premier League games.
The star-studded squad also contains 222 Premier League goals and over 320 global appearances.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven scores in over 100 appearances for his former club after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse made his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home game versus defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six goals in a 6-2 victory - featuring a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.
The team for this season 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 top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the former Premier League footballers have claimed fifteen significant honors and moved for total transfer sums of about £123m.
Household Figures and International Stars
Stephen Ireland started playing for the side during pre-season this season through close mate and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then invited other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to join in.
Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who scored 12 scores in sixty-five Premier League games for the Toffees and even now goes to their home games, also had his first appearance against the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their strip.
"A friend Stephen told me 'come and play, it's a laugh'," commented Niasse.
"After that he told me we were facing a team from the city and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Blue kits - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still enjoy football and you know you can still do it, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"Those spectators who turn up and watch are pleased and to give a day if they watch us competing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the joy of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
Such is the squad depth at the club, Niasse had his first game at defender.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"That running is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Feeling
Along with Cisse's 6 goals on debut, Ireland has scored 8 in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored five on his first appearance and Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a triple in one match up front.
The team are leading of the Top Tier with 3 victories from three and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for the opposition, faced ex- Latics defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in as well as featuring in over two hundred top-flight matches.
"It was spreading like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League players," remarked the player.
"I felt I was a bit starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has 60-odd English caps.
"Our side competed well for a good 20 mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"Our group really haven't stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the journey home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of regular guys.
"Now we can't wait for the return fixture."
'We'll Still Take the Title'
Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Premier Division title the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.
"Our team scored one-nil up and had a