Introduce the Weekend League Club With 1,800 Top-Flight Matches
How can you boost a stellar experienced team who have won back-to-back titles, including a double triumph with thirty wins from thirty-two matches?
Bring in a group of ex- professionals who have performed at the elite tier of club football and international football as you aim for additional silverware.
One Greater Manchester team boasts an non-professional vets squad with 9 former top-flight footballers in their active squad.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are situated in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Vets League Premier Division.
Their squad list this campaign boasts nine former Premier League footballers, with a combined nearly 1,800 top-flight appearances.
The elite team also contains over 220 Premier League scores and 325 global appearances.
The squad include one forward, who scored thirty-seven goals in over 100 games for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from German league club Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse had his first appearance for the team in their last home match versus defending title holders Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a half-hour first-half triple.
Wythenshawe's team for this season also features former pros such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- top-flight footballers have secured fifteen significant honors and moved for combined transfer fees of approximately £123m.
Famous Names and International Stars
Stephen Ireland started playing for the team during preseason this season through good mate and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.
Ex- Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five top-flight games for Everton and still goes to their home games, also had his first appearance versus the opposition - who are based in the city and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.
"A friend Stephen Ireland said 'join and play, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.
"After that he told me we were playing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!
"When you still love the game and you feel you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"The people who come and see are pleased and to give a moment if they see us competing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his debut at full-back.
"That's a bit unusual but then, I love running and just go inside - 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 continue attacking.
"That running is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
Dreamlike' Scenario
In addition to Cisse's six scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
The team are leading of the Premier Division with 3 wins from three and a goal difference of +19.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against former Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at two World Cups for Honduras, in as well as playing in more than two hundred Premier League games.
"The news was going round like a rumor they had all these former top-flight players," said Barrow.
"I felt I was a little awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's got over 60 England caps.
"Our side held our own for a good twenty minutes but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.
"Our group really haven't ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of regular fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the return fixture."
'We'll Still Take the Title'
The manager coaches the opposition vets team, who won the Premier Tier title last season, together with Paul Maguire.
"We went one-nil ahead and had a