Meet the Weekend League Club Boasting Over 1,800 Top-Flight Matches
How can you boost a outstanding veteran side that have won consecutive titles, featuring a league-cup double with 30 victories from thirty-two matches?
Bring in a raft of ex- professionals who have performed at the elite tier of club and international soccer as you target more trophies.
One Greater Manchester club fields an amateur veterans team with 9 former Premier League players in their current squad.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are situated in south the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Vets League Premier Tier.
The lineup this campaign boasts nine former Premier League footballers, with a collective nearly 1,800 Premier League matches.
This high-profile roster also contains over 220 top division scores and over 320 international caps.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven goals in 117 appearances for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse had his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home-field match versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six goals in a 6-2 win - including a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.
The team for this season also features ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the former top-flight players have won 15 significant honors and transferred for combined transfer fees of approximately £123m.
Well-Known Names and International Stars
Stephen Ireland began turning out for the side during preseason this season through close mate and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked other ex-pros, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.
Former Senegalese striker Niasse, who scored 12 scores in sixty-five Premier League games for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"My mate Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.
"After that he told me we were playing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Blue shirts - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still love football and you know you can still do it, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"Those people who turn up and watch are happy and to make a moment if they watch us competing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us getting a place we can play, with structure of course."
Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his first game at full-back.
"It'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 centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"The movement is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
Unreal Scenario
In addition to the forward's 6 scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored 5 on his first appearance and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Tier with 3 victories from three and a GD of plus nineteen.
One opponent, 38, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced former Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.
He has appeared at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as featuring in more than two hundred top-flight games.
"It was going round like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League stars," remarked the player.
"I felt I was a little awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Heskey came on and he's got 60-odd English appearances.
"Our side held our own for a good twenty minutes but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.
"Our group really have not stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the journey home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of normal fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the return fixture."
'We'll Still Win the League'
The manager coaches the Collegiate vets team, who secured the Top Division title the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a