Meet the Weekend League Squad Boasting Over 1,800 Premier League Games
What can you boost a excellent veteran side that have secured consecutive championships, including a double triumph boasting thirty victories from 32 games?
Bring in a collection of former professionals that have played at the elite tier of club football and global soccer as you aim for further silverware.
A Greater Manchester side fields an amateur veterans squad with nine former Premier League footballers in their active roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, 325 Global Appearances
The team Vets Over-35s are situated in south the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Premier Tier.
Their roster this campaign includes nine former top-flight footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 top-flight matches.
This elite squad also includes 222 top division scores and 325 global appearances.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 goals in over 100 appearances for his former club after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in January 2012.
He made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field game versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six goals in a six-two win - including a 32-minute opening period triple.
Wythenshawe's team for this campaign also features former pros such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the former Premier League players have claimed fifteen major trophies and moved for total transfer fees of around £123m.
Famous Figures and Global Stars
Ireland began turning out for the side in pre-season this summer through close friend and present team player Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek small-sided match, to participate.
Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who netted 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 against Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"My mate Stephen Ireland said 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Everton kits - I thought this is wrong for me!
"If you still love football and you know you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"The spectators who come and watch are happy and to give a day if they see us competing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the joy of us getting a place we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at full-back.
"It's a bit different but then, I enjoy running and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"The running is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Unreal Experience
Along with the forward's 6 scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his first match and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a hat-trick in one match up front.
The team are top of the Premier Division with three wins from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for the opposition, came up against ex- Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at two World Cups for Honduras, in as well as featuring in over 200 Premier League matches.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had these former top-flight players," remarked the player.
"I think I was a bit awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has over 60 English appearances.
"We held our own for a solid 20 mins but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
"Our group literally have not ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.
"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a group of regular fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Win the League'
The manager manages the opposition vets side, who won the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.
"We scored 1-0 ahead and had a