Discover this Weekend League Team Featuring Nearly Two Thousand Premier League Appearances
How can you enhance a excellent experienced squad who have claimed consecutive titles, including a double triumph with 30 victories from 32 matches?
Recruit a collection of ex- professionals that have competed at the elite level of club and global football as you target additional honors.
One Manchester side boasts an amateur vets squad with nine former top-flight footballers in their present roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, 325 International Appearances
Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are situated in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Vets League Top Division.
Their squad list this season features 9 former top-flight footballers, with a combined 1,801 Premier League appearances.
This elite squad also contains over 220 top division goals and 325 international appearances.
They include one forward, who notched 37 scores in 117 games for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from German league side Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home game versus reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six goals in a six-two victory - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick.
The squad for this season also features ex- pros such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the former top-flight footballers have won fifteen big trophies and moved for total transfer sums of approximately £123 million.
Famous Names and International Players
Ireland started playing for the team in pre-season this summer through good friend and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then invited additional former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to join in.
Former Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in sixty-five Premier League matches for the Toffees and even now goes to their home games, also made his debut against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.
"My friend Stephen said 'come and play, it's good fun'," commented the striker.
"Then he informed me we were facing a team from the city and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Blue shirts - I say this is strange for me!
"When you still love football and you know you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"Those spectators who come and watch are happy and to make someone's day if they see us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us getting a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
Such is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his first game at defender.
"That's a little unusual but then, I enjoy running and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"The running is what I'm seeking. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Feeling
Along with the forward's six scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in 3 games for the side, while George Boyd hit five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a triple in one game up front.
The team are leading of the Top Division with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young boy who Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at two global tournaments for his country, in as well as featuring in over two hundred Premier League games.
"It was going round like a rumor they had all these former top-flight players," said Barrow.
"I think I was a little awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd England caps.
"Our side held our own for a solid 20 mins but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.
"Our group literally 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 facing a bunch of regular fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
We Will Still Win the League'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate vets side, who won the Premier Division championship last season, together with Paul Maguire.
"We went one-nil up and had a