Introduce the Weekend Division Squad Boasting 1,800 Premier League Appearances
How do you boost a stellar veteran team that have won consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 victories from thirty-two matches?
Recruit a raft of ex- professionals who have played at the highest tier of club and international soccer as you pursue further silverware.
One Greater Manchester side fields an amateur vets squad with nine ex- Premier League footballers in their current squad.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances
The team Veterans Over 35s are located in southern the city and play in the Cheshire Veterans League Top Tier.
Their lineup this season boasts nine ex- top-flight players, with a collective nearly 1,800 elite games.
The elite roster also contains 222 Premier League goals and 325 international caps.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven scores in 117 games for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home-field match against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six goals in a six-two victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half triple.
The roster for this season also includes former professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the ex- top-flight players have claimed fifteen big honors and transferred for total transfer fees of around £123m.
Household Figures and Global Players
Stephen Ireland began playing for the side in pre-season this season through close mate and present team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked additional ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek small-sided match, to participate.
Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who scored 12 scores in 65 top-flight games for Everton and still attends their home games, also made his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in the city and wear an Everton training kit as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," said the striker.
"Then he informed me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Blue shirts - I say this is wrong for me!
"When you still enjoy football and you know you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"Those people who turn up and see are pleased and to make a moment if they watch us playing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."
Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his debut at defender.
"That's a bit unusual but then, I love sprinting and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he added.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.
"The movement is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
'Surreal Experience
Along with Cisse's six goals on his first game, Ireland has scored 8 in three appearances for the side, while George Boyd hit five on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a hat-trick in one match as a striker.
The team are top of the Premier Tier with 3 victories from three and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against former Latics defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.
He has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in over 200 top-flight games.
"It was going round like a rumor they had all these former top-flight players," said Barrow.
"I think I was a bit starstruck facing him to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's got 60-odd English caps.
"Our side competed well for a solid 20 mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.
"Our group literally have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the journey home.
"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a group of regular fellas.
"Now we are eager for the second fixture."
We Will Still Win the League'
The manager coaches the opposition veterans team, who secured the Premier Tier title last season, along with his co-manager.
"We scored one-nil up and had a