Meet the Weekend League Team Featuring Over 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances
How do you improve a stellar experienced team that have claimed consecutive championships, including a league-cup double with 30 wins from thirty-two games?
Sign a collection of former pro players who have performed at the top tier of club football and global soccer as you target further silverware.
One Greater Manchester club has an non-professional veterans squad with 9 former Premier League players in their active lineup.
222 Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps
Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are situated in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Premier Division.
Their roster this season features 9 former Premier League players, with a total over 1,800 elite matches.
This star-studded roster also includes 222 top division scores and over 320 international appearances.
They include Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven goals in over 100 games for his former club after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He made his first appearance for the team in their last home match against defending title holders Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six goals in a six-two win - featuring a half-hour first-half hat-trick.
The roster for this season also includes former professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the former Premier League players have claimed 15 big trophies and moved for total transfer sums of around £123m.
Famous Figures and International Players
Ireland began turning out for the team in preseason this season through good friend and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a weekly small-sided match, to join in.
Former Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve scores in 65 Premier League matches for Everton and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in the city and wear an Blue training kit as their strip.
"My mate Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," commented the striker.
"After that he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Blue kits - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still love the game and you feel you can still play, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"The spectators who come and see are pleased and to make a day if they see us competing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the joy of us getting a place we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
So great is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at defender.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy running and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"That movement is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."
Unreal Feeling
In addition to Cisse's six scores on debut, Ireland has scored eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit 5 on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a triple in one match as a striker.
The team are top of the Premier Tier with three victories from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for the opposition, faced ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.
He has played at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in addition to playing in over 200 top-flight matches.
"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League players," remarked the player.
"I felt I was a bit starstruck playing against him to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's got 60-odd English caps.
"We competed well for a good twenty minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.
"We literally haven't stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of regular fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."
We Will Still Win the Title'
Andy Kirby manages the opposition vets side, who secured the Premier Tier championship last season, together with Paul Maguire.
"Our team went 1-0 ahead and had a