Meet the Weekend Division Team Boasting Nearly Two Thousand English Top Division Games
How do you enhance a excellent experienced team who have won consecutive championships, including a double triumph with 30 victories from thirty-two matches?
Sign a collection of ex- pro players who have played at the top tier of club football and international football as you aim for more trophies.
A Greater Manchester club boasts an non-professional vets squad with nine ex- top-flight footballers in their active squad.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Caps
The team Vets Over 35s are situated in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire Vets Division Premier Division.
The roster this campaign features 9 former top-flight footballers, with a total 1,801 Premier League matches.
This star-studded team also includes over 220 Premier League scores and 325 global appearances.
They feature one forward, who netted 37 goals in over 100 appearances for his former club after moving to them for £9m from German league club SC Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home game versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six scores in a six-two win - featuring a half-hour first-half triple.
Wythenshawe's roster for this campaign also includes former professionals such as England and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the former top-flight footballers have won 15 big trophies and moved for total transfer fees of around £123m.
Household Names and International Players
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the side in preseason this summer through good mate and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then invited additional ex-pros, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side game, to join in.
Ex- Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 top-flight games for Everton and still goes to their home games, also had his debut against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their strip.
"A mate Stephen told me 'join and play, it's enjoyable'," commented Niasse.
"After that he told me we were playing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Blue kits - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still love the game and you know you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"Those people who turn up and see are pleased and to make a moment if they see us competing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can play, with structure of course."
Such is the squad depth at the club, he had his debut at defender.
"It's a little different but then, I love sprinting and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"The movement is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Experience
In addition to the forward's six scores on debut, Ireland has netted 8 in three games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a triple 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, 38, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Latics defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.
He has appeared at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as featuring in over two hundred Premier League games.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had all these former top-flight players," remarked the player.
"I think I was a bit awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Heskey got on and he's got 60-odd England caps.
"We held our own for a good twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.
"Our group really have not ceased talking about it - I was phoning my mum and sibling on the journey home.
"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of normal fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the return fixture."
'We'll Still Take the Title'
The manager manages the Collegiate veterans side, who secured the Premier Tier title last season, along with his co-manager.
"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a