Meet this Weekend League Club With Over 1,800 Top-Flight Matches
How do you improve a excellent veteran side who have secured back-to-back championships, featuring a double triumph boasting thirty wins from 32 games?
Sign a group of former pro players that have competed at the highest tier of club and international soccer as you target more trophies.
One Greater Manchester team fields an non-professional veterans squad with 9 former Premier League players in their current squad.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Appearances
The team Veterans Over-35s are situated in south the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets League Premier Division.
Their lineup this campaign includes 9 ex- top-flight footballers, with a total 1,801 elite games.
This star-studded team also includes 222 top division scores and 325 international caps.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 goals in over 100 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for nine million pounds from German league side Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six scores in a six-two victory - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick.
The roster for this campaign also includes former pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the former Premier League footballers have claimed 15 big honors and moved for combined transfer fees of approximately £123 million.
Household Names and International Players
Stephen Ireland started playing for the side during pre-season this summer through good mate and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then invited additional former professionals, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to participate.
Former Senegal striker Niasse, who netted 12 scores in 65 top-flight games for Everton and still goes to their home games, also made his first appearance versus the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's a laugh'," said Niasse.
"After that he told me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Everton shirts - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still enjoy football and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"The spectators who turn up and watch are pleased and to make someone's moment if they see us competing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the joy of us getting a place we can play, with structure of course."
Such is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at defender.
"That's a bit different but then, I love running and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"The running is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
Dreamlike' Experience
In addition to Cisse's 6 goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, notched a hat-trick in one match as a striker.
The team are leading of the Top Tier with three wins from three and a GD of +19.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.
He has appeared at 2 global tournaments for his country, in addition to playing in over two hundred Premier League games.
"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these former top-flight stars," remarked the player.
"I felt I was a little awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey came on and he's got over 60 England caps.
"Our side held our own for a good twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.
"Our group literally have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.
"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of normal guys.
"Now we can't wait for the return match."
'We'll Still Take the Title'
Andy Kirby coaches the opposition veterans team, who won the Premier Division title the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a