Introduce the Weekend League Team Boasting Over 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances
How can you boost a stellar experienced squad who have won back-to-back championships, featuring a double triumph with 30 wins from thirty-two matches?
Sign a raft of ex- pro players who have competed at the top level of club and international soccer as you pursue more silverware.
One Manchester side fields an non-professional veterans team with nine former Premier League footballers in their present lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, 325 International Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are located in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire Veterans Division Premier Tier.
Their lineup this campaign includes nine ex- Premier League players, with a collective 1,801 top-flight games.
The elite team also contains 222 Premier League scores and 325 international caps.
The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 scores in 117 games for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse made his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field match versus defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - featuring a half-hour opening period triple.
The roster for this season also features former pros such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City 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 former top-flight footballers have claimed fifteen big honors and transferred for total transfer fees of around £123m.
Household Figures and International Stars
Stephen Ireland started playing for the team during preseason this season through close friend and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.
Ex- Senegalese forward Niasse, who netted twelve goals in 65 top-flight matches for Everton and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.
"A mate Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," said the striker.
"Then he told 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 the game and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?
"Those fans who turn up and see are pleased and to make someone's day if they see us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having a place we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
Such is the strength in depth at the club, Niasse made his debut at defender.
"That's a little different but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go forward - I'm not staying back 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 looking for. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Feeling
In addition to Cisse's six scores on his first game, Ireland has scored eight in 3 appearances for the side, while George Boyd hit 5 on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one game up front.
The team are top of the Premier Division with three wins from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.
He has appeared at two World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in more than two hundred Premier League matches.
"The news was spreading like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League stars," said the player.
"I think I was a bit starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got over 60 English caps.
"We competed well for a solid twenty minutes but then we had a player sent off and it was tough.
"We literally have not ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the way home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of normal fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
We Will Still Win the Title'
The manager coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Premier Division title last season, along with his co-manager.
"Our team scored one-nil ahead and had a