Discover the Weekend League Team With Over 1,800 English Top Division Appearances
What can you boost a stellar veteran side who have claimed back-to-back titles, featuring a double triumph boasting 30 wins from thirty-two matches?
Recruit a group of ex- professionals that have competed at the highest level of club and international football as you aim for additional silverware.
A Greater Manchester team boasts an amateur veterans squad with nine former top-flight footballers in their active squad.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Appearances
The team Veterans Over-35s are located in south the city and play in the Cheshire Veterans Division Top Tier.
The lineup this campaign features 9 former Premier League players, with a total 1,801 Premier League matches.
The high-profile roster also contains 222 top division goals and 325 global appearances.
The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 goals in over 100 appearances for his former club after joining them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse made his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field game against reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six goals in a six-two victory - including a half-hour opening period hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's roster for this campaign also includes ex- professionals such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- Premier League footballers have won 15 big trophies and moved for combined transfer sums of about £123 million.
Famous Names and International Players
Stephen Ireland began turning out for the side during pre-season this season through close mate and current team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then invited other ex-pros, who all play in a midweek small-sided match, to participate.
Former Senegal forward Niasse, who scored 12 goals in sixty-five top-flight matches for the Toffees and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance versus the opposition - who are located in the city and use an Everton training kit as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen told me 'join and play, it's good fun'," said the striker.
"After that he told me we were playing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I say this is wrong for me!
"If you still love football and you feel you can still play, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"The fans who come and see are pleased and to give a moment if they watch us competing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the joy of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."
Such is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his first game at full-back.
"That's a bit unusual but then, I love running and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"That movement is what I'm seeking. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Experience
In addition to Cisse's 6 scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in 3 games for the side, while Boyd scored five on his first match and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a triple in one game up front.
The team are leading of the Top Division with three victories from 3 and a GD of +19.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against former Latics full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at 2 global tournaments for his country, in as well as playing in more than two hundred Premier League games.
"The news was going round like wildfire they had these former top-flight players," remarked the player.
"I felt I was a bit awestruck facing him to be honest.
"Also Heskey came on and he's got 60-odd English appearances.
"We competed well for a good 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"Our group really have not ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the journey home.
"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of regular guys.
"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate vets side, who won the Premier Tier title the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.
"We scored one-nil up and had a