Discover the Weekend Division Squad Featuring 1,800 Premier League Games
What do you boost a stellar experienced squad that have won consecutive titles, including a double triumph with thirty victories from 32 matches?
Recruit a group of former pro players who have competed at the elite level of club football and international soccer as you pursue further silverware.
A Greater Manchester club boasts an amateur vets squad with nine ex- top-flight players in their active roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Appearances
Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are based in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire Vets League Premier Division.
The roster this campaign includes 9 former Premier League footballers, with a collective over 1,800 elite games.
The star-studded roster also boasts 222 Premier League scores and over 320 global caps.
They include one forward, who netted 37 scores in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse had his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home-field match versus defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six goals in a six-two victory - featuring a half-hour opening period triple.
Wythenshawe's squad for this season also features former professionals such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the former top-flight footballers have won fifteen significant honors and moved for combined transfer sums of around £123 million.
Well-Known Names and Global Players
Ireland began turning out for the team during preseason this season through good mate and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then invited additional ex-pros, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to participate.
Former Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"My mate Stephen said 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented Niasse.
"Then he told me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Everton shirts - I say this is strange for me!
"When you still enjoy football and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?
"The people who turn up and see are happy and to give someone's 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 organisation of course."
So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his debut at defender.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.
"The movement is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Experience
Along with Cisse's 6 goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored five on his first appearance and Lescott, a defender by position, scored a triple in one match as a striker.
The team are top of the Top Division with 3 victories from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.
He has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as featuring in over 200 top-flight games.
"It was spreading like wildfire they had these former top-flight stars," remarked Barrow.
"I felt I was a bit starstruck facing him to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has over 60 England caps.
"Our side competed well for a good 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"We literally haven't stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the journey home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of regular fellas.
"Now we are eager for the return match."
'We'll Still Take the Title'
Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate vets team, who won the Top Division title last season, along with his co-manager.
"We went 1-0 up and had a