Discover this Sunday Division Club Featuring Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Games
How can you improve a excellent experienced side that have won back-to-back titles, featuring a double triumph boasting 30 victories from 32 matches?
Sign a group of former professionals that have performed at the highest level of club and international football as you aim for more honors.
One Greater Manchester side boasts an amateur vets squad with nine former Premier League footballers in their active squad.
222 Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps
Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are located in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Veterans League Top Tier.
The roster this season includes 9 ex- top-flight players, with a combined 1,801 top-flight matches.
The star-studded roster also contains 222 Premier League scores and 325 global caps.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 scores in over 100 games for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He made his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home game against reigning champions their rivals and scored all six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a half-hour opening period triple.
Wythenshawe's squad for this season also includes former pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- top-flight players have secured fifteen big trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of about £123 million.
Famous Names and International Players
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team during pre-season this season through close mate and current team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to participate.
Ex- Senegalese forward Niasse, who netted 12 scores in sixty-five top-flight games for Everton and even now attends their home games, also made his debut against Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and use an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.
"A mate Stephen said 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented the striker.
"Then he informed me we were facing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Blue shirts - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still enjoy the game and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?
"The fans who come and see are happy and to give a moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us having somewhere we can play, with structure of course."
Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at defender.
"It's a bit different but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.
"That running is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."
Dreamlike' Feeling
Along with the forward's 6 goals on debut, Ireland has netted eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a defender by position, notched a triple in one game as a striker.
The team are leading of the Top Division with three victories from three and a GD of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young boy who Heskey was.
He has played at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in addition to featuring in more than 200 Premier League matches.
"It was going round like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League players," remarked the player.
"I felt I was a bit starstruck facing him to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's got over 60 English caps.
"We held our own for a solid 20 mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"We literally have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the journey home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of regular fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the return match."
'We'll Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate veterans side, who won the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"We scored 1-0 ahead and had a