Meet this Weekend Division Team Featuring Nearly Two Thousand English Top Division Games
How can you boost a excellent experienced side that have claimed back-to-back titles, featuring a double triumph with thirty wins from thirty-two games?
Sign a raft of ex- professionals that have performed at the elite level of club and international football as you target additional honors.
A Greater Manchester side boasts an non-professional veterans team with 9 former top-flight footballers in their present squad.
222 Top Division Goals, 325 International Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are located in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Premier Tier.
The lineup this season features nine ex- top-flight players, with a total 1,801 Premier League games.
The star-studded squad also contains 222 top division goals and over 320 global appearances.
The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 scores in 117 games for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home-field match versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six scores in a 6-2 win - including a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's squad for this season also features ex- professionals such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the former Premier League footballers have secured fifteen significant honors and moved for total transfer sums of approximately £123m.
Well-Known Figures and Global Players
Stephen Ireland started playing for the team during preseason this summer through close friend and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then asked additional ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side match, to participate.
Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five Premier League games for Everton and even now attends their home games, also had his debut against the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and use an Blue training kit as their uniform.
"My friend Stephen Ireland told me 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," commented Niasse.
"After that he told me we were facing a side from the city and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Blue kits - I say this is strange for me!
"If you still love the game and you know you can still do it, anywhere 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 playing 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."
Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at defender.
"That's a bit different but then, I love sprinting and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"The movement is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Experience
In addition to the forward's 6 scores on debut, Ireland has scored eight in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored 5 on his first match and Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a triple in one game up front.
The team are top of the Premier Division with three victories from three and a GD of +19.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, faced ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young son who Emile Heskey was.
He has appeared at two global tournaments for his country, in as well as playing in over two hundred top-flight games.
"The news was spreading like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League stars," said the player.
"I felt I was a bit awestruck playing against him to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's has over 60 English caps.
"Our side competed well for a solid twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.
"We literally haven't ceased chatting 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 bunch of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the return match."
We Will Still Win the League'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate vets side, who secured the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.
"We went 1-0 up and had a