Discover this Weekend Division Team With Nearly Two Thousand English Top Division Appearances
What do you boost a excellent experienced side that have secured back-to-back championships, including a double triumph with thirty victories from 32 games?
Bring in a raft of former pro players that have performed at the highest tier of club football and global football as you target additional trophies.
One Manchester club has an non-professional vets squad with nine ex- Premier League footballers in their current squad.
222 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 Division Premier Division.
The lineup this campaign features 9 former top-flight players, with a combined nearly 1,800 top-flight matches.
The star-studded team also includes over 220 Premier League scores and 325 global caps.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 scores in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after signing for them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in 2012.
He made his first appearance for the team in their most recent home-field match versus defending title holders their rivals and scored all six goals in a six-two victory - including a half-hour opening period triple.
Wythenshawe's roster for this campaign also features ex- pros such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the ex- top-flight footballers have secured fifteen major trophies and transferred for total transfer sums of about £123m.
Household Figures and Global Stars
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team during preseason this season through good mate and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked other former professionals, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side match, to participate.
Ex- Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 scores in 65 top-flight matches for Everton and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance versus the opposition - who are based in the city and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"My mate Stephen Ireland told me 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were facing a side from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Blue shirts - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?
"Those spectators who come and watch are pleased and to make someone's moment if they see us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting somewhere we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the bench strength at the club, he had his debut at defender.
"That's a little different but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"That movement is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Feeling
Along with Cisse's six goals on debut, Ireland has scored 8 in three games for the side, while Boyd hit five on his first match and Lescott, a defender by position, scored a hat-trick in one match up front.
The team are top of the Premier Division with three wins from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, faced ex- Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young boy who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as playing in over two hundred top-flight games.
"The news was spreading like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League players," remarked the player.
"I felt I was a little awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got 60-odd English appearances.
"We held our own for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.
"We literally haven't ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the way home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a bunch of normal guys.
"Now we can't wait for the second match."
'We'll Still Take the Title'
The manager manages the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Top Tier championship last season, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team scored one-nil ahead and had a