Discover the Sunday League Club Featuring Over 1,800 Premier League Matches
How do you enhance a excellent veteran squad who have won back-to-back championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 wins from thirty-two matches?
Bring in a raft of ex- pro players who have performed at the top tier of club and global football as you target more trophies.
A Greater Manchester team has an amateur vets team with 9 former top-flight footballers in their active lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, 325 Global Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are based in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Premier Division.
Their squad list this season includes nine former top-flight players, with a collective nearly 1,800 elite matches.
This star-studded roster also boasts over 220 top division 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 nine million pounds from German league side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse made his first appearance for the team in their most recent home game against reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six goals in a six-two win - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.
The squad for this campaign also includes ex- pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- Premier League footballers have secured fifteen significant trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of approximately £123m.
Famous Names and Global Players
Ireland started playing for the side during preseason this season through good mate and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked other ex-pros, who all play in a midweek small-sided match, to participate.
Former Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted 12 goals in 65 top-flight matches for Everton and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and use an Blue training kit as their uniform.
"My friend Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," said the striker.
"Then he informed me we were playing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Everton kits - I thought this is wrong for me!
"If you still love the game and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?
"The people who come and watch are pleased and to make a day if they see us competing 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 bench strength at the club, Niasse made his debut at defender.
"That's a bit different but then, I love running and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"That running is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
'Surreal Experience
Along with Cisse's 6 scores on debut, Ireland has scored eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his debut match and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a hat-trick in one match as a striker.
The team are top of the Premier Division with 3 victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the wing for the opposition, faced former Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.
He has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in addition to playing in more than two hundred top-flight games.
"The news was going round like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League players," remarked the player.
"I felt I was a bit starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's got 60-odd English appearances.
"We held our own for a good twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.
"We literally haven't ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the way home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of regular guys.
"Now we can't wait for the second match."
'We'll Still Win the Title'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate vets team, who won the Top Tier championship last season, along with his co-manager.
"We went 1-0 ahead and had a