Meet the Weekend Division Squad With Over 1,800 Top-Flight Matches
How do you boost a excellent experienced squad that have won consecutive titles, including a league-cup double boasting 30 wins from thirty-two matches?
Sign a raft of former pro players that have competed at the highest level of club football and global football as you target more silverware.
A Manchester team fields an amateur veterans team with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their active lineup.
222 Premier League Scores, 325 International Appearances
Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are located in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire-based Vets League Top Tier.
Their roster this campaign features 9 former Premier League footballers, with a total over 1,800 Premier League appearances.
This high-profile roster also contains 222 Premier League scores and 325 international appearances.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven scores in 117 games for his former club after moving to them for £9m from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match against defending title holders Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - including a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.
The roster for this season also includes former pros such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley 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.
In total, the ex- top-flight footballers have claimed fifteen significant honors and transferred for combined transfer sums of around £123m.
Famous Names and Global Stars
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the side during preseason this season through close mate and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then invited additional former professionals, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to join in.
Former Senegal forward Niasse, who netted twelve goals in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are located in the city and use an Blue training kit as their strip.
"My friend Stephen Ireland said 'join and play, it's good fun'," said Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were facing a team from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Everton shirts - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still enjoy football and you feel you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?
"Those spectators who turn up and watch are pleased and to make someone's day if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the joy of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
Such is the bench strength at the club, he had his debut at full-back.
"It'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 staying' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"The running is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Experience
In addition to the forward's six scores on debut, Ireland has scored eight in three games for the side, while George Boyd scored 5 on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a triple in one game as a striker.
The team are top of the Top Tier with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
One opponent, 38, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.
He has appeared at two World Cups for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than 200 Premier League matches.
"It was spreading like wildfire they had all these former top-flight stars," remarked the player.
"I think I was a little starstruck playing against him to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] got 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.
"We really have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the journey home.
"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a group of normal fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second match."
We Will Still Win the Title'
Andy Kirby coaches the opposition veterans team, who secured the Premier Tier championship last season, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a