Discover this Weekend League Squad Boasting Nearly Two Thousand English Top Division Games
What can you enhance a excellent veteran squad who have secured back-to-back championships, including a league-cup double with thirty wins from 32 games?
Bring in a group of former pro players that have played at the elite level of club football and global soccer as you aim for more silverware.
A Manchester side has an non-professional veterans squad with nine ex- top-flight footballers in their present squad.
222 Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Appearances
The team Vets Over-35s are located in southern the city and play in the Cheshire Vets Division Premier Division.
The roster this campaign boasts nine former Premier League footballers, with a collective 1,801 Premier League appearances.
The star-studded team also boasts over 220 top division scores and over 320 global caps.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 scores in over 100 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse made his first appearance for the team in their last home-field match against reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six goals in a six-two victory - including a 32-minute first-half triple.
Wythenshawe's squad for this season also includes ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- Premier League footballers have secured fifteen significant trophies and moved for total transfer fees of around £123 million.
Well-Known Names and International Players
Stephen Ireland began playing for the side in preseason this season through close mate and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.
Ex- Senegal striker Niasse, who scored 12 scores in sixty-five top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now attends their home games, also made his debut versus the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and use an Blue training kit as their strip.
"A friend Stephen Ireland told me 'join and play, it's enjoyable'," said the striker.
"Then he told me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Everton kits - I say this is wrong for me!
"If you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?
"Those fans who come and see are pleased and to make someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having a place we can play, with organisation of course."
So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he made his debut at full-back.
"That's a little different but then, I love running and just move inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"The movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Dreamlike' Feeling
Along with Cisse's 6 goals on his first game, Ireland has scored 8 in three games for the side, while George Boyd scored 5 on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one match as a striker.
The team are top of the Premier Division with three wins from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced former Wigan full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young son who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at two global tournaments for his country, in addition to playing in more than two hundred Premier League games.
"It was spreading like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League players," said the player.
"I think I was a bit starstruck facing him to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has over 60 English caps.
"Our side competed well for a solid twenty mins but then we had a player sent off and it was tough.
"We really haven't ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the way home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a bunch of regular fellas.
"Now we are eager for the return fixture."
'We'll Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate vets team, who secured the Top Division championship last season, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team went one-nil ahead and had a