Introduce the Sunday League Team Boasting 1,800 Top-Flight Matches
How do you improve a outstanding veteran team that have won consecutive titles, including a league-cup double boasting thirty wins from 32 matches?
Bring in a raft of former professionals who have played at the top level of club and global soccer as you aim for additional honors.
A Greater Manchester side boasts an amateur veterans team with nine ex- top-flight footballers in their present roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, 325 Global Appearances
Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are situated in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Top Division.
Their roster this campaign includes nine former Premier League players, with a combined nearly 1,800 Premier League matches.
This elite team also contains 222 top division goals and over 320 global appearances.
The squad feature one forward, who scored thirty-seven goals in 117 appearances for his former club after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field game versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's roster for this season also features former professionals such as England and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back 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 players have claimed fifteen significant trophies and moved for combined transfer fees of about £123 million.
Household Names and International Stars
Stephen Ireland began playing for the team in preseason this season through good friend and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then invited additional ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.
Ex- Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted 12 goals in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"My mate Stephen Ireland told me 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," commented the striker.
"After that he informed me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Blue shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!
"When you still love football and you feel you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?
"The people who turn up and see are pleased and to give someone's moment if they see us competing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."
Such is the squad depth at the club, he made his debut at full-back.
"It's a little unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"That running is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
Unreal Scenario
Along with Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his debut match and Lescott, a defender by position, scored a hat-trick in one game up front.
Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Tier with 3 wins from three and a GD of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against former Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young boy who Emile Heskey was.
He has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as featuring in more than 200 Premier League matches.
"It was going round like a rumor they had these former top-flight stars," remarked Barrow.
"I think I was a bit starstruck facing him to be honest.
"Even Heskey came on and he's has over 60 English caps.
"We competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.
"Our group really haven't stopped talking about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a group of regular guys.
"Now we can't wait for the second match."
We Will Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate vets team, who won the Premier Division title the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team scored one-nil up and had a