Introduce this Weekend Division Team Boasting 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances
What do you enhance a outstanding experienced side that have secured back-to-back championships, featuring a league-cup double with thirty victories from 32 matches?
Sign a raft of ex- professionals who have performed at the elite tier of club and global soccer as you target more trophies.
A Greater Manchester side has an non-professional vets squad with 9 ex- top-flight footballers in their current roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, 325 Global Caps
Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are based in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire Vets League Premier Division.
The lineup this season features nine former top-flight footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 elite appearances.
The star-studded team also contains over 220 top division scores and 325 international caps.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven scores in over 100 games for his former club after signing for them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse made his debut for the team in their last home-field game versus reigning title holders their rivals and netted all six scores in a six-two victory - featuring a 32-minute opening period triple.
Wythenshawe's team for this season also features former pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- top-flight footballers have won fifteen big honors and transferred for total transfer fees of around £123m.
Famous Figures and International Players
Ireland began turning out for the team during pre-season this season through close mate and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other former professionals, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side game, to participate.
Ex- Senegal striker Niasse, who netted 12 scores in sixty-five Premier League games for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.
"My friend Stephen Ireland said 'come and play, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.
"Then he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Blue kits - I say this is strange for me!
"When you still enjoy football and you feel you can still play, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"The spectators who turn up and see are pleased and to give someone's day if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting somewhere we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he made his first game at full-back.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"The movement is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
'Surreal Scenario
In addition to the forward's six scores on his first game, Ireland has scored 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his first match and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a hat-trick in one match up front.
The team are leading of the Premier Tier with three wins from 3 and a goal difference of +19.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for Honduras, in addition to featuring in more than two hundred top-flight games.
"It was spreading like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League stars," said Barrow.
"I think I was a little awestruck facing him to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has 60-odd England caps.
"We held our own for a good twenty mins but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.
"Our group literally haven't stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the journey home.
"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of regular guys.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
We Will Still Win the Title'
Andy Kirby manages the opposition vets side, who won the Top Division title last season, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team went 1-0 up and had a