Meet this Weekend League Squad Boasting Over 1,800 English Top Division Matches
How can you enhance a stellar veteran squad that have claimed back-to-back titles, featuring a double triumph with thirty wins from 32 games?
Recruit a group of ex- professionals that have performed at the elite level of club football and international soccer as you aim for further honors.
One Manchester club has an amateur vets team with nine ex- top-flight footballers in their current roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 Global Appearances
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are based in southern the city and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Premier Tier.
The squad list this campaign boasts 9 ex- Premier League players, with a combined over 1,800 elite matches.
The elite roster also boasts over 220 Premier League goals and 325 global appearances.
The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven scores in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home game against reigning champions their rivals and netted every one of the six goals in a 6-2 win - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick.
The squad for this season also includes ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the ex- Premier League players have secured 15 big honors and moved for total transfer fees of around £123m.
Well-Known Figures and Global Stars
Stephen Ireland began playing for the team during preseason this season through good friend and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then asked additional former professionals, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.
Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 goals in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their uniform.
"A mate Stephen Ireland said 'join and play, it's good fun'," said the striker.
"Then he informed me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I thought this is strange for me!
"When you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?
"The spectators who come and watch are happy and to give someone's day if they see us playing there and to pose us questions - it's really about the joy of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."
Such is the bench strength at the club, he made his first game at defender.
"It's a little different but then, I enjoy running and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"The running is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."
Dreamlike' Scenario
Along with the forward's six goals on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in 3 appearances for the side, while Boyd scored 5 on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a triple in one game up front.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Tier with three wins from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced former Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at two World Cups for Honduras, in as well as playing in more than two hundred Premier League games.
"The news was going round like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League stars," remarked Barrow.
"I think I was a little starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has 60-odd English appearances.
"Our side competed well for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player sent off and it was tough.
"Our group literally have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the way home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of normal guys.
"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Win the League'
The manager coaches the opposition veterans team, who won the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a