Introduce the Sunday Division Team With Nearly Two Thousand English Top Division Matches
What do you enhance a outstanding veteran squad who have secured consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph with 30 wins from thirty-two games?
Sign a raft of ex- pro players that have performed at the highest level of club football and global soccer as you aim for additional trophies.
A Greater Manchester team boasts an non-professional veterans team with nine ex- Premier League footballers in their active squad.
222 Premier League Goals, 325 Global Caps
The team Vets Over 35s are situated in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Top Division.
The roster this season includes 9 ex- Premier League players, with a collective over 1,800 Premier League appearances.
The star-studded roster also contains over 220 top division goals and 325 international appearances.
The squad include one forward, who scored 37 goals in over 100 games for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse had his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field match versus defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six goals in a 6-2 win - featuring a 32-minute opening period triple.
Wythenshawe's squad for this season also includes former pros such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the ex- Premier League players have claimed fifteen major trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of around £123m.
Well-Known Figures and International Players
Ireland began turning out for the side during pre-season this season through good mate and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to participate.
Ex- Senegalese striker Niasse, who scored twelve scores in 65 top-flight games for the Toffees and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against the opposition - who are located in the city and wear an Everton training kit as their strip.
"A mate Stephen said 'join and play, it's a laugh'," commented Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Everton kits - I thought this is wrong for me!
"If you still enjoy football and you feel you can still play, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"Those spectators who turn up and watch are happy and to give someone's moment if they see us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us having a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
Such is the squad depth at the club, he made his first game at full-back.
"That's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"That running is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Unreal Experience
Along with the forward's 6 goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored five on his first match and Lescott, a defender by position, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
The team are top of the Top Tier with 3 wins from three and a goal difference of +19.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against former Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.
He has played at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in as well as playing in more than 200 Premier League matches.
"The news was spreading like a rumor they had these former top-flight stars," remarked Barrow.
"I felt I was a little starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got 60-odd English caps.
"Our side competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
"Our group literally have not ceased talking about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of normal fellas.
"Now we are eager for the return fixture."
We Will Still Take the Title'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate veterans side, who secured the Premier Tier championship last season, along with his co-manager.
"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a