Introduce the Weekend League Club With Nearly Two Thousand Premier League Appearances
How can you enhance a excellent experienced team who have won consecutive championships, including a double triumph boasting thirty wins from thirty-two games?
Recruit a collection of former pro players who have played at the highest level of club and international football as you pursue more honors.
One Greater Manchester team boasts an non-professional veterans team with 9 ex- top-flight players in their current lineup.
222 Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances
Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are located in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire Veterans League Top Division.
The lineup this campaign includes nine ex- top-flight footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 elite matches.
The star-studded team also includes 222 Premier League goals and over 320 international appearances.
The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 goals in over 100 games for his former club after signing for them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his debut for the team in their most recent home game versus defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six scores in a six-two win - including a 32-minute opening period triple.
The squad for this campaign also features former pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- Premier League footballers have won fifteen major honors and transferred for total transfer fees of around £123m.
Household Names and Global Players
Ireland started turning out for the side in preseason this season through close friend and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.
Former Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve scores in 65 Premier League games for the Toffees and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"My friend Stephen said 'join and have a game, it's good fun'," commented the striker.
"Then he told me we were playing a team from the city and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Everton kits - I say this is strange for me!
"If you still enjoy football and you know you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?
"Those fans who come and watch are happy and to give someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the joy of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his first game at defender.
"It's a little unusual but then, I love running and just move inside - I'm not staying back that much," he added.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"That running is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."
Unreal Feeling
Along with the forward's 6 goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
The team are top of the Premier Division with three wins from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the wing for the opposition, came up against ex- Latics defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.
He has played at two global tournaments for his country, in addition to featuring in more than 200 top-flight matches.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League stars," remarked the player.
"I think I was a little starstruck facing him to be honest.
"Even Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd English caps.
"We held our own for a good 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"We really have not ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the journey home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the return fixture."
We Will Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.
"We scored 1-0 up and had a