Meet the Weekend League Team With 1,800 Top-Flight Games
What can you boost a excellent experienced squad who have secured back-to-back championships, including a double triumph with thirty victories from 32 matches?
Sign a group of former professionals who have performed at the top tier of club and global soccer as you aim for more silverware.
One Manchester team boasts an amateur veterans squad with 9 former top-flight players in their current roster.
222 Premier League Scores, 325 Global Appearances
Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are located in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Veterans League Premier Tier.
Their squad list this campaign features nine ex- Premier League players, with a collective nearly 1,800 Premier League games.
The elite squad also contains over 220 top division goals and over 320 global appearances.
They include Papiss Cisse, who scored thirty-seven goals in over 100 games for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from German league side SC Freiburg in 2012.
He made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home game against reigning title holders their rivals and scored every one of the six goals in a six-two victory - featuring a 32-minute opening period triple.
Wythenshawe's team for this season also includes ex- professionals such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- top-flight players have secured 15 significant honors and moved for total transfer sums of approximately £123m.
Household Names and International Players
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team during preseason this summer through close friend and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then asked additional ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to participate.
Ex- Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 goals in 65 Premier League matches for Everton and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their strip.
"A friend Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented the striker.
"Then he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Blue kits - I say this is wrong for me!
"If you still love football and you feel you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?
"The spectators who come and watch are pleased and to make a day if they see us competing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the joy of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."
So great is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his debut at defender.
"It's a little different but then, I love running and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"That running is what I'm after. It's good fun."
'Surreal Scenario
In addition to the forward's 6 scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored five on his debut match and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a triple in one match up front.
The team are leading of the Premier Tier with three victories from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against former Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.
He has played at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in as well as playing in over two hundred top-flight games.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League stars," said Barrow.
"I felt I was a bit starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has over 60 England appearances.
"We held our own for a good 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"We literally have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the way home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of normal guys.
"Now we can't wait for the return match."
We Will Still Take the League'
The manager manages the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.
"We went one-nil up and had a