Meet the Weekend League Squad Featuring Nearly Two Thousand Premier League Games
How do you enhance a outstanding experienced team that have secured back-to-back titles, including a league-cup double boasting thirty victories from 32 games?
Recruit a collection of former professionals that have performed at the elite level of club football and global football as you pursue more trophies.
A Manchester club boasts an non-professional veterans team with nine ex- Premier League players in their current lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, 325 Global Caps
The team Vets Over-35s are based in southern the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets League Top Division.
Their roster this season boasts 9 former top-flight footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 top-flight matches.
The star-studded squad also includes 222 top division scores and 325 international appearances.
They include Papiss Cisse, who scored thirty-seven goals in over 100 games for his former club after joining them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home game versus defending champions their rivals and scored all six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick.
The squad for this campaign also includes ex- pros such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the former Premier League footballers have secured 15 significant trophies and transferred for combined transfer sums of about £123m.
Famous Names and International Stars
Ireland started playing for the team in pre-season this summer through close friend and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then asked additional ex-pros, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.
Former Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 scores in 65 top-flight matches for Everton and even now goes to their home games, also had his debut against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"A friend Stephen Ireland said 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," said Niasse.
"Then he told me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Everton shirts - I thought this is strange for me!
"If you still love the game and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"Those people who turn up and watch are pleased and to make a day if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the joy of us having somewhere we can play, 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 enjoy running and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"The running is what I'm seeking. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Feeling
Along with the forward's six scores on debut, Ireland has scored 8 in 3 appearances for the side, while George Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a triple in one game as a striker.
Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Tier with 3 wins from three and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against former Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.
He has appeared at two global tournaments for his country, in as well as playing in over two hundred Premier League matches.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had all these former top-flight players," remarked Barrow.
"I felt I was a bit starstruck facing him to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has over 60 England caps.
"Our side competed well for a solid 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.
"Our group really have not ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and sibling on the way home.
"The opponents were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of regular fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second match."
We Will Still Take the League'
Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate vets side, who won the Top Division championship last season, along with Paul Maguire.
"We went 1-0 up and had a