Discover this Weekend League Club Boasting 1,800 English Top Division Appearances
What do you boost a outstanding experienced team that have secured consecutive titles, including a double triumph with thirty wins from 32 matches?
Recruit a collection of former professionals who have played at the elite tier of club football and global soccer as you aim for additional trophies.
One Greater Manchester team fields an amateur veterans team with nine ex- top-flight footballers in their present lineup.
222 Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps
Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are situated in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Top Division.
Their roster this season includes 9 ex- Premier League footballers, with a collective over 1,800 Premier League appearances.
This star-studded roster also contains over 220 Premier League goals and over 320 global caps.
They include Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 goals in 117 games for his former club after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field game versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six goals in a 6-2 win - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's squad for this season also features ex- pros such as England and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the ex- Premier League players have won 15 major trophies and transferred for combined transfer sums of around £123m.
Famous Figures and International Players
Ireland started turning out for the side in pre-season this summer through close mate and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to participate.
Ex- Senegal striker Niasse, who netted twelve goals in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen told me 'come and play, it's a laugh'," commented the striker.
"After that he told me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Blue kits - I thought this is strange for me!
"When you still love football and you know you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?
"The spectators who come and see are pleased and to make someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us getting a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
Such is the strength in depth at the club, he had his first game at full-back.
"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 centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.
"That running is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Dreamlike' Scenario
Along with Cisse's 6 scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in three games for the side, while Boyd hit five on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a hat-trick in one match up front.
The team are top of the Premier Tier with three wins from 3 and a GD of +19.
One opponent, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against former Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as playing in more than two hundred Premier League matches.
"The news was going round like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League players," remarked the player.
"I felt I was a little starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Heskey got on and he's has 60-odd English appearances.
"We competed well for a good 20 mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"We literally have not stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and sibling on the way home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the return match."
We Will Still Take the Title'
The manager manages the opposition veterans team, who secured the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.
"Our team went one-nil ahead and had a