Introduce the Weekend Division Squad Boasting Over 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances
How do you improve a stellar experienced side that have won back-to-back titles, including a double triumph boasting 30 wins from 32 matches?
Sign a group of ex- professionals who have played at the highest level of club and global soccer as you pursue additional trophies.
One Manchester team fields an amateur vets squad with 9 former Premier League players in their active lineup.
222 Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Appearances
Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are located in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire Vets Division Top Division.
Their roster this campaign features nine ex- top-flight footballers, with a collective 1,801 Premier League matches.
This high-profile team also boasts over 220 Premier League goals and 325 international caps.
They include one forward, who netted 37 goals in over 100 games for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home match versus reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - featuring a half-hour first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's squad for this campaign also includes former pros such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the former Premier League footballers have secured fifteen big honors and transferred for combined transfer sums of about £123m.
Household Names and Global Stars
Stephen Ireland began turning out for the side during preseason this season through close mate and current team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side match, to join in.
Ex- Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve goals in 65 Premier League matches for Everton and still goes to their home games, also made his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen Ireland told me 'come and have a game, it's a laugh'," said Niasse.
"Then he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Blue kits - I thought this is strange for me!
"If you still enjoy football and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?
"Those people who come and watch are pleased and to give a day if they watch us competing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
Such is the bench strength at the club, he had his debut at defender.
"It's a little different but then, I love running and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.
"The running is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Dreamlike' Scenario
Along with Cisse's six scores on debut, Ireland has netted eight in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored 5 on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a triple in one match up front.
The team are leading of the Top Tier with 3 victories from three and a goal difference of +19.
One opponent, 38, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in as well as featuring 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 think I was a bit awestruck playing against him to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's got over 60 English caps.
"Our side held our own for a solid twenty minutes but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.
"Our group really have not stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the journey home.
"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a bunch of normal fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the return match."
We Will Still Win the League'
Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans side, who secured the Top Division championship the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"We scored one-nil ahead and had a