Introduce the Weekend Division Team With Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Matches
How do you improve a stellar veteran squad who have secured back-to-back championships, featuring a double triumph with thirty wins from 32 matches?
Bring in a group of ex- pro players that have played at the top level of club football and international soccer as you target additional trophies.
A Greater Manchester team has an non-professional veterans team with 9 former Premier League footballers in their current lineup.
222 Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps
Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are based in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Premier Tier.
The roster this campaign includes 9 former top-flight players, with a combined 1,801 Premier League games.
The high-profile roster also contains over 220 Premier League goals and 325 global appearances.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven scores in 117 appearances for his former club after signing for them for nine million pounds from German league side Freiburg in January 2012.
He made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field match versus reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six goals in a 6-2 win - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's squad for this season also includes former professionals such as English and Anfield forward 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 top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the former Premier League footballers have secured 15 significant honors and moved for total transfer fees of around £123 million.
Household Figures and International Players
Stephen Ireland started playing for the team in pre-season this season through close friend and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all play in a weekly small-sided game, to participate.
Former Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 top-flight games for Everton 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 strip.
"My friend Stephen Ireland told me 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.
"Then he informed me we were playing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Blue shirts - I say this is wrong for me!
"If you still love football and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"Those people who come and watch are pleased and to make a moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the joy of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his debut at defender.
"It's a little unusual but then, I love running and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"The movement is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Experience
In addition to the forward's 6 scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one match up front.
The team are top of the Premier Tier with three victories from 3 and a goal difference of +19.
Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against former Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young boy who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at two global tournaments for his country, in addition to playing in more than two hundred Premier League matches.
"The news was going round like wildfire they had these former top-flight players," remarked the player.
"I think I was a little starstruck facing him to be honest.
"Also Heskey came on and he's got over 60 England appearances.
"We held our own for a good 20 minutes but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.
"Our group really have not ceased talking about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the way home.
"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of regular guys.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate vets side, who secured the Premier Tier title last season, along with Paul Maguire.
"We scored one-nil ahead and had a