Discover this Sunday League Club With Nearly Two Thousand Premier League Games
How do you boost a stellar experienced side who have secured consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double with thirty victories from 32 matches?
Bring in a collection of ex- professionals that have performed at the highest level of club and global football as you pursue more trophies.
One Greater Manchester side fields an non-professional vets team with nine ex- top-flight players in their active squad.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Appearances
Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are based in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Veterans League Premier Tier.
The roster this season includes 9 ex- top-flight players, with a total over 1,800 Premier League matches.
This star-studded roster also boasts over 220 top division scores and over 320 global caps.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven goals in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after moving to them for £9m from Bundesliga club Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field game against reigning champions their rivals and netted all six goals in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.
The roster for this season also features former professionals such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the former Premier League footballers have won fifteen big trophies and moved for combined transfer sums of about £123m.
Household Figures and International Stars
Ireland began playing for the team in pre-season this season through good friend and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then asked additional ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek small-sided match, to participate.
Former Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and wear an Everton training kit as their strip.
"My friend Stephen told me 'join and play, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were facing a team from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Blue shirts - I say this is strange for me!
"If you still love football and you know you can still do it, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"The spectators who turn up and see are pleased and to give a day if they see us competing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his debut at defender.
"That's a little different but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"The movement is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Feeling
In addition to Cisse's six goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit 5 on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Tier with 3 victories from three and a goal difference of +19.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.
He has appeared at 2 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 the player.
"I felt I was a little awestruck playing against him to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has over 60 England appearances.
"Our side held our own for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.
"Our group really have not stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of normal guys.
"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Win the League'
The manager coaches the opposition vets side, who secured the Top Tier championship last season, along with his co-manager.
"We went one-nil ahead and had a