Meet this Sunday League Team Featuring 1,800 Top-Flight Games
How can you improve a stellar experienced side that have claimed consecutive championships, including a league-cup double with 30 wins from thirty-two matches?
Recruit a collection of ex- professionals who have performed at the elite tier of club and global soccer as you aim for additional silverware.
A Manchester side fields an amateur veterans team with nine former Premier League players in their active lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 Global Appearances
Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are situated in southern the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets League Top Division.
The roster this season includes nine former Premier League players, with a total 1,801 top-flight games.
The high-profile squad also contains over 220 Premier League goals and over 320 international caps.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 goals in 117 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse had his debut for the team in their last home-field match versus reigning title holders their rivals and netted every one of the six goals in a 6-2 win - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's team for this season also includes former professionals such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- Premier League footballers have won fifteen significant honors and transferred for total transfer fees of about £123m.
Household Figures and Global Players
Ireland started turning out for the side in pre-season this summer through good mate and present team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then invited other former professionals, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to participate.
Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who netted 12 goals in sixty-five Premier League matches for Everton and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and use an Everton training kit as their strip.
"A friend Stephen told me 'join and play, it's good fun'," commented the striker.
"After that he told me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Blue kits - I say this is strange for me!
"When you still love the game and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"Those fans who come and see are pleased and to make a moment if they see us competing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the joy of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
So great is the strength in depth at the club, Niasse made his first game at full-back.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy running and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"The movement is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Feeling
Along with Cisse's 6 goals on his first game, Ireland has scored 8 in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his debut match and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
The team are top of the Top Division with three wins from three and a GD of +19.
One opponent, 38, who features on the flank for the opposition, faced ex- Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than 200 Premier League matches.
"The news was spreading like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League stars," remarked the player.
"I think I was a little starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got over 60 England appearances.
"We held our own for a solid twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"We really have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the way home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of regular guys.
"Now we are eager for the return fixture."
'We'll Still Win the League'
The manager manages the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Top Tier title last season, along with Paul Maguire.
"We scored 1-0 up and had a