Introduce the Sunday League Team Boasting 1,800 Top-Flight Matches
What can you boost a excellent experienced team who have won consecutive championships, including a double triumph with 30 wins from 32 games?
Sign a collection of ex- pro players who have performed at the top level of club and global soccer as you pursue more silverware.
A Greater Manchester team boasts an non-professional vets squad with nine former Premier League footballers in their current squad.
222 Premier League Goals, 325 Global Caps
The team Vets Over-35s are situated in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire Veterans League Premier Division.
The roster this season features 9 ex- Premier League footballers, with a collective 1,801 top-flight appearances.
This elite roster also contains 222 Premier League goals and 325 global appearances.
They include Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 goals in over 100 games for Newcastle United after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse made his first appearance for the team in their last home-field match versus defending champions their rivals and netted every one of the six goals in a six-two win - including a 32-minute opening period triple.
Wythenshawe's team for this season also features former pros such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- Premier League footballers have claimed fifteen big trophies and moved for total transfer fees of around £123 million.
Household Figures and International Players
Ireland started turning out for the team in preseason this summer through close mate and present team player Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked additional ex-pros, who all play in a weekly small-sided match, to participate.
Former Senegal forward Niasse, who netted twelve goals in sixty-five Premier League matches for the Toffees and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut against Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and wear an Everton training kit as their strip.
"A friend Stephen told me 'come and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented the striker.
"Then he informed me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Everton kits - I say this is strange for me!
"When you still enjoy the game and you know you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"Those fans who turn up and see are happy and to give someone's day if they watch us playing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us getting a place we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
Such is the bench strength at the club, he made his debut at full-back.
"That's a bit different but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"That movement is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
Unreal Feeling
In addition to Cisse's six goals on debut, Ireland has netted 8 in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one game as a striker.
The team are leading of the Top Division with three victories from three and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against former Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young boy who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in more than two hundred Premier League games.
"The news was spreading like a rumor they had all these former top-flight players," remarked Barrow.
"I think I was a little awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's has 60-odd England appearances.
"Our side competed well for a good 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.
"Our group literally have not ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the way home.
"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the second match."
We Will Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate vets side, who secured the Premier Tier championship last season, along with his co-manager.
"Our team went one-nil up and had a