Discover this Weekend Division Club Boasting Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Matches
How do you enhance a outstanding veteran side that have won back-to-back championships, featuring a double triumph with thirty victories from 32 games?
Sign a collection of ex- pro players that have competed at the highest level of club and international football as you target further trophies.
One Greater Manchester side boasts an non-professional vets team with nine ex- Premier League footballers in their active squad.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, 325 Global Caps
Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are located in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Top Tier.
Their lineup this campaign features 9 ex- Premier League footballers, with a total 1,801 Premier League matches.
This high-profile roster also contains 222 Premier League scores and 325 global appearances.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven goals in over 100 appearances for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from German league side Freiburg in 2012.
He made his debut for the team in their most recent home-field match against reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six goals in a 6-2 victory - featuring a half-hour first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's squad for this campaign also includes former professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- top-flight footballers have secured 15 major honors and transferred for total transfer fees of about £123m.
Household Figures and International Stars
Ireland started turning out for the side in preseason this summer through close mate and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side match, to join in.
Former Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 scores in sixty-five top-flight matches for Everton and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance versus the opposition - who are located in the city and wear an Blue training kit as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen told me 'come and play, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.
"After that he told me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Blue kits - I say this is strange for me!
"When you still enjoy the game and you know you can still do it, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"The fans who turn up and watch are pleased and to make a day if they watch us competing there and to pose us questions - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."
Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he had his first game at full-back.
"That'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 attacking.
"That movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Unreal Feeling
Along with Cisse's six scores on debut, Ireland has netted 8 in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one game up front.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Division with 3 wins from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for the opposition, faced former Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.
He has appeared at 2 global tournaments for his country, in as well as featuring in more than two hundred top-flight matches.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had all these former top-flight players," remarked Barrow.
"I think I was a little awestruck playing against him to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's got over 60 England appearances.
"We held our own for a good twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"We literally haven't ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of regular guys.
"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."
We Will Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Top Division title last season, together with his co-manager.
"We went one-nil ahead and had a