Discover this Weekend League Squad With Over 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances
How can you improve a stellar veteran side that have won back-to-back titles, including a double triumph boasting 30 wins from 32 matches?
Bring in a collection of former pro players who have played at the top level of club and global soccer as you aim for more honors.
A Manchester side has an non-professional veterans team with 9 former Premier League footballers in their current lineup.
222 Premier League Goals, 325 International Caps
Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are based in south the city and compete in the Cheshire Veterans Division Premier Division.
Their roster this season boasts 9 former top-flight players, with a combined 1,801 elite appearances.
This elite team also boasts over 220 top division scores and 325 global caps.
The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven goals in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after moving to them for £9m from Bundesliga club Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse made his first appearance for the team in their most recent home-field game against defending title holders their rivals and netted every one of the six goals in a six-two win - including a 32-minute first-half triple.
The roster for this season also includes former pros such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- Premier League footballers have won 15 big honors and moved for total transfer sums of about £123 million.
Household Names and Global Stars
Stephen Ireland started playing for the team in pre-season this summer through good mate and present team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other former professionals, who all play in a weekly small-sided game, to join in.
Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who scored twelve goals in 65 Premier League matches for Everton and still attends their home games, also had his debut against the opposition - who are located in the city and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"My friend Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," commented the striker.
"Then 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 strange for me!
"When you still love football and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"Those people who turn up and watch are pleased and to give a moment if they see us competing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the bench strength at the club, he had his debut at full-back.
"That's a bit different but then, I enjoy running and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.
"That movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Dreamlike' Feeling
In addition to Cisse's six scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one match up front.
The team are leading of the Premier Tier with three wins from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
One opponent, 38, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced former Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.
He has appeared at 2 global tournaments for his country, in as well as featuring in more than two hundred Premier League games.
"It was spreading like wildfire they had these former top-flight players," remarked the player.
"I felt I was a bit awestruck playing against him to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has 60-odd England appearances.
"We held our own for a solid twenty minutes but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.
"We literally haven't stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home.
"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a group of regular fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Win the Title'
The manager coaches the opposition vets side, who won the Top Division championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.
"We went one-nil up and had a