Meet the Sunday League Squad With Over 1,800 Top-Flight Matches
How do you boost a stellar veteran side who have secured back-to-back championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting thirty victories from 32 matches?
Sign a collection of ex- pro players that have competed at the highest level of club and international soccer as you target additional trophies.
One Manchester side has an amateur vets team with nine ex- Premier League players in their active lineup.
222 Top Division Goals, 325 Global Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are based in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Premier Tier.
The roster this campaign features nine former top-flight footballers, with a total over 1,800 elite matches.
This star-studded team also boasts over 220 top division goals and 325 international appearances.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 scores in 117 games for his former club after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his debut for the team in their last home-field game against defending champions their rivals and netted all six scores in a 6-2 win - featuring a half-hour opening period hat-trick.
The roster for this season also includes ex- professionals such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the former top-flight players have won fifteen significant honors and moved for combined transfer fees of about £123 million.
Household Names and International Stars
Stephen Ireland began playing for the team in pre-season this summer through close mate and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to participate.
Former Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve scores in 65 top-flight matches for the Toffees and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut against the opposition - who are based in the city and wear an Everton training kit as their strip.
"My mate Stephen Ireland told me 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.
"Then he told me we were playing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Blue kits - I say this is strange for me!
"If you still love football and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?
"The people who turn up and watch are pleased and to give someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting somewhere we can play, with structure of course."
Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he made his debut at defender.
"It's a little unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.
"That running is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
Unreal Scenario
Along with the forward's 6 scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored 5 on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a triple in one game up front.
The team are leading of the Premier Tier with three wins from 3 and a GD of +19.
One opponent, 38, who features on the wing for the opposition, came up against ex- Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young boy who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in addition to featuring in over two hundred Premier League matches.
"The news was going round like wildfire they had all these former top-flight players," said the player.
"I felt I was a little awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Heskey got on and he's got over 60 England appearances.
"We held our own for a good 20 minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.
"We literally have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of regular fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the return fixture."
We Will Still Win the League'
The manager coaches the opposition vets side, who secured the Premier Division title the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.
"We went one-nil up and had a