Meet the Weekend League Squad Boasting Over 1,800 Top-Flight Matches
What can you boost a outstanding experienced team that have claimed back-to-back titles, including a double triumph with 30 victories from 32 matches?
Sign a collection of ex- professionals who have played at the elite level of club and global football as you aim for additional honors.
A Manchester team has an amateur veterans squad with 9 ex- Premier League players in their current roster.
222 Premier League Scores, 325 International Appearances
Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are based in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire Veterans Division Top Division.
The squad list this season includes 9 ex- Premier League footballers, with a collective nearly 1,800 top-flight games.
The elite squad also includes 222 Premier League scores and 325 global appearances.
The squad include one forward, who notched 37 scores in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after signing for them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse made his first appearance for the team in their most recent home game against reigning champions their rivals and scored all six scores in a 6-2 win - featuring a half-hour first-half hat-trick.
The roster for this campaign also features ex- pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic 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 claimed 15 major honors and moved for combined transfer sums of about £123m.
Well-Known Names and International Players
Stephen Ireland began turning out for the team during preseason this summer through good friend and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then invited other former professionals, who all play in a weekly small-sided match, to join in.
Former Senegal forward Niasse, who scored 12 scores in 65 Premier League games for the Toffees and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made 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 'come and play, it's enjoyable'," said the striker.
"After that he told me we were playing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them wearing Everton kits - I thought this is wrong for me!
"If you still love the game and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"Those people who turn up and see are happy and to make someone's moment if they watch us competing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the joy of us having a place we can play, with organisation of course."
So great is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he made his debut at defender.
"That's a little unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"The movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."
'Surreal Feeling
In addition to Cisse's six scores on his first game, Ireland has scored 8 in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored 5 on his first match and Lescott, a defender by position, notched a triple in one match as a striker.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Tier with three wins from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced former Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for his country, in as well as featuring in more than 200 top-flight games.
"The news was going round like wildfire they had all these former top-flight players," said Barrow.
"I think I was a little awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Heskey got on and he's has over 60 England appearances.
"We competed well for a solid 20 mins but then we had a player sent off and it was tough.
"We really have not ceased talking about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the journey home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of regular guys.
"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."
'We'll Still Win the Title'
Andy Kirby coaches the opposition vets team, who won the Top Tier championship the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.
"We scored 1-0 ahead and had a