Meet the Weekend Division Club With 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances
What do you improve a outstanding experienced squad that have claimed back-to-back titles, featuring a league-cup double boasting thirty wins from thirty-two matches?
Sign a raft of ex- professionals who have competed at the elite tier of club and international football as you target more silverware.
A Greater Manchester side fields an non-professional vets squad with 9 former top-flight footballers in their active squad.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, 325 International Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are located in south the city and compete in the Cheshire Veterans League Premier Tier.
Their lineup this campaign features 9 ex- Premier League players, with a total over 1,800 Premier League matches.
The elite team also contains over 220 Premier League goals and 325 international caps.
The squad include one forward, who scored 37 scores in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match against reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six goals in a six-two win - featuring a 32-minute first-half triple.
Wythenshawe's roster for this season also includes ex- pros such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the former Premier League footballers have claimed fifteen major honors and moved for combined transfer sums of around £123m.
Well-Known Names and International Players
Stephen Ireland started playing for the team during pre-season this season through good friend and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then invited other former professionals, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side match, to participate.
Former Senegal striker Niasse, who scored 12 scores in 65 Premier League matches for the Toffees and even now goes to their home games, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen Ireland said 'come and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said the striker.
"After that he informed me we were facing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Blue kits - I thought this is wrong 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 choose?
"The people who come and watch are happy and to make a moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
So great is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at defender.
"It's a little unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"The movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."
'Surreal Scenario
In addition to the forward's 6 scores on debut, Ireland has scored 8 in 3 appearances for the side, while Boyd scored five on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
The team are top of the Top Division with 3 wins from three and a GD of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young boy who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at 2 World Cups for his country, in addition to featuring in more than two hundred Premier League games.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had these former top-flight players," said the player.
"I think I was a bit starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey came on and he's got 60-odd England appearances.
"We competed well for a good twenty minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.
"We really have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the journey home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of normal fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the return match."
'We'll Still Win the League'
The manager coaches the opposition vets team, who won the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.
"We scored 1-0 ahead and had a