Meet this Weekend League Squad Featuring 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances
How do you enhance a stellar veteran squad that have claimed back-to-back championships, featuring a double triumph with thirty victories from 32 games?
Recruit a group of ex- pro players who have competed at the elite tier of club football and international football as you aim for more trophies.
One Greater Manchester side boasts an amateur vets team with nine former Premier League footballers in their present roster.
222 Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are located in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Top Division.
The roster this season boasts 9 ex- top-flight players, with a combined 1,801 Premier League appearances.
This elite roster also contains over 220 top division goals and over 320 international caps.
The squad feature one forward, who notched 37 goals in over 100 games for Newcastle United after moving to them for £9m from German league side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse made his first appearance for the team in their last home-field match against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six goals in a six-two win - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.
The roster for this campaign also features former professionals such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the ex- Premier League footballers have won 15 major honors and moved for total transfer sums of approximately £123 million.
Well-Known Names and Global Players
Ireland started playing for the team during pre-season this season through good friend and present team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then asked additional former professionals, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.
Ex- Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in sixty-five Premier League matches for the Toffees and even now attends their home games, also had his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen Ireland said 'join and play, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.
"Then he informed me we were facing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Everton kits - I thought this is strange for me!
"If you still enjoy the game and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?
"Those fans who turn up and see are happy and to make a day if they watch us competing there and to pose us questions - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
So great is the bench strength at the club, he made his first game at defender.
"That's a bit different but then, I love sprinting and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"That running is what I'm seeking. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Scenario
In addition to the forward's six goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in three games for the side, while George Boyd scored five on his debut match and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a triple in one match as a striker.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Division with three victories from three and a GD of plus nineteen.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against former Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young son who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for his country, in addition to playing in more than two hundred top-flight matches.
"It was spreading like wildfire they had all these former top-flight stars," said the player.
"I think I was a little awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's got over 60 English caps.
"We held our own for a solid twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.
"We really have not ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the journey home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the return match."
We Will Still Take the League'
The manager coaches the opposition veterans team, who secured the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.
"We went 1-0 up and had a