Introduce this Weekend League Team Boasting 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances
How can you boost a stellar experienced side who have claimed consecutive titles, including a league-cup double boasting 30 wins from 32 matches?
Sign a raft of ex- professionals that have played at the top tier of club football and international soccer as you target further silverware.
A Manchester side has an amateur veterans squad with nine former Premier League players in their active lineup.
222 Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are situated in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets League Top Division.
The squad list this season includes 9 ex- Premier League players, with a combined 1,801 top-flight games.
The elite squad also includes 222 Premier League goals and over 320 international appearances.
They include Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven scores in over 100 appearances for his former club after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga club Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse had his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match against defending title holders their rivals and netted every one of the six goals in a six-two victory - including a 32-minute first-half triple.
The squad for this campaign also features ex- professionals such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- top-flight players have claimed 15 significant trophies and transferred for combined transfer sums of about £123 million.
Well-Known Names and International Players
Ireland started playing for the side during preseason this summer through good friend and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked other ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to participate.
Ex- Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 scores in 65 top-flight games for Everton and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in the city and wear an Everton training kit as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen told me 'come and have a game, it's a laugh'," commented the striker.
"Then he informed me we were facing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Everton kits - I thought this is strange for me!
"If you still love football and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"The spectators who turn up and see are pleased and to give someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the pleasure of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the squad depth at the club, Niasse made his first game at defender.
"That's a bit different but then, I love sprinting and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"The movement is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Experience
Along with Cisse's 6 scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his debut match and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a triple in one game as a striker.
The team are leading of the Top Division with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of +19.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for the opposition, faced ex- Wigan full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at two global tournaments for his country, in addition to playing in more than 200 top-flight matches.
"The news was spreading like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League players," remarked the player.
"I felt I was a little starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Heskey got on and he's got 60-odd England caps.
"Our side held our own for a solid twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.
"We literally have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the way home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of normal fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the return match."
We Will Still Win the League'
Andy Kirby coaches the opposition vets side, who won the Premier Tier title the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team scored one-nil ahead and had a