Introduce the Weekend Division Team Featuring Over 1,800 Premier League Appearances
What do you boost a outstanding veteran squad that have secured back-to-back titles, including a double triumph with 30 wins from 32 matches?
Recruit a group of former professionals that have played at the top tier of club and global soccer as you aim for more honors.
One Manchester club has an non-professional vets team with nine ex- top-flight footballers in their active roster.
222 Top Division Scores, 325 International Appearances
Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are situated in southern the city and play in the Cheshire Vets Division Premier Division.
Their squad list this season includes nine ex- Premier League footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 top-flight appearances.
This high-profile team also includes 222 top division scores and 325 global appearances.
The squad include one forward, who scored thirty-seven scores in over 100 appearances for his former club after signing for them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home game versus reigning champions their rivals and scored all six scores in a 6-2 win - including a half-hour opening period triple.
Wythenshawe's roster for this campaign also features ex- pros such as England and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- Premier League players have won fifteen significant trophies and moved for total transfer fees of about £123 million.
Well-Known Figures and International Players
Ireland started turning out for the team in preseason this summer through close friend and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then invited additional ex-pros, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to participate.
Former Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve scores in sixty-five Premier League matches for the Toffees and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance versus the opposition - who are based in the city and use an Everton training kit as their strip.
"My mate Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," commented the striker.
"Then he told me we were playing a team from the city and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Blue shirts - I thought this is strange for me!
"When you still love football and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"The spectators who turn up and watch are pleased and to make a moment if they watch us competing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having a place we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at defender.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I love running and just move inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"The running is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."
'Surreal Experience
In addition to the forward's six scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in 3 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.
The team are top of the Top Tier with 3 victories from 3 and a goal difference of +19.
One opponent, 38, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.
He has played at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in as well as playing in more than two hundred top-flight matches.
"It was spreading like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League stars," said the player.
"I think I was a bit awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey came on and he's got over 60 English caps.
"We competed well for a good twenty minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.
"We really haven't ceased talking about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the journey home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of regular fellas.
"Now we are eager for the return fixture."
We Will Still Win the Title'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Top Division title last season, along with his co-manager.
"We scored one-nil ahead and had a