Discover the Weekend League Squad Boasting Over 1,800 English Top Division Appearances
How can you enhance a stellar experienced team that have secured consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 wins from thirty-two matches?
Bring in a collection of ex- pro players who have competed at the elite level of club football and global soccer as you pursue additional honors.
A Manchester club fields an non-professional veterans squad with nine former top-flight footballers in their present roster.
222 Premier League Scores, 325 Global Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are located in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Premier Tier.
The squad list this campaign boasts 9 ex- Premier League players, with a combined over 1,800 Premier League appearances.
This star-studded team also boasts 222 top division goals and over 320 international caps.
They feature one forward, who notched 37 goals in over 100 games for his former club after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his first appearance for the team in their last home match versus reigning champions their rivals and scored every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick.
The roster for this campaign also features ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the former top-flight players have won 15 major honors and moved for total transfer sums of approximately £123m.
Household Figures and International Stars
Ireland began playing for the side in preseason this summer through good mate and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then invited other former professionals, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to participate.
Ex- Senegalese striker Niasse, who scored 12 scores in sixty-five Premier League matches for Everton and still goes to their home games, also had his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their strip.
"A friend Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," said Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Everton kits - I thought this is strange for me!
"When you still enjoy football and you know you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?
"The spectators who turn up and see are happy and to give a moment if they see us competing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having a place we can play, with organisation of course."
Such is the squad depth at the club, Niasse had his first game at defender.
"That's a little different but then, I love sprinting and just go forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"That running is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Unreal Scenario
Along with Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored five on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, notched a triple in one game up front.
The team are leading of the Top Division with 3 wins from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against former Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.
He has appeared at two global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to featuring in over two hundred top-flight games.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had these former top-flight stars," remarked the player.
"I felt I was a bit starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has over 60 England caps.
"We competed well for a good 20 mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.
"We really have not ceased talking about it - I was phoning my mum and sibling on the way home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of normal fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans team, who won the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.
"We went one-nil up and had a