Discover this Weekend League Squad Featuring 1,800 Premier League Games
How do you enhance a excellent experienced team who have won back-to-back championships, including a league-cup double boasting 30 victories from thirty-two games?
Bring in a raft of former pro players that have competed at the elite tier of club football and international football as you aim for more silverware.
A Manchester club fields an amateur vets squad with nine former Premier League footballers in their current lineup.
222 Premier League Goals, 325 International Caps
Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are located in south the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Top Division.
Their lineup this season includes nine former Premier League footballers, with a collective nearly 1,800 top-flight games.
This elite roster also contains over 220 top division goals and 325 global appearances.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven scores in over 100 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse made his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match versus reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six goals in a six-two win - featuring a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.
The squad for this campaign also includes ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- top-flight players have won fifteen significant trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of about £123 million.
Well-Known Names and Global Players
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team in preseason this summer through good mate and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then invited additional ex-pros, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side game, to participate.
Ex- Senegalese striker Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five Premier League games for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and use an Blue warm-up gear as their strip.
"My mate Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," commented the striker.
"After that he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Blue shirts - I thought this is strange for me!
"If you still love the game and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"Those fans who turn up and see are pleased and to give a moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at full-back.
"That's a bit unusual but then, I love running and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"The movement is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Experience
Along with Cisse's 6 goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in three games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored 5 on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a hat-trick in one match as a striker.
The team are top of the Premier Division with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of +19.
Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Latics full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in over 200 Premier League games.
"It was spreading like a rumor they had all these former top-flight players," said Barrow.
"I think I was a little awestruck facing him to be honest.
"Also Heskey came on and he's got 60-odd English caps.
"We held our own for a good twenty mins but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.
"We really haven't stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the way home.
"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a group of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the return match."
We Will Still Win the League'
The manager coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Top Division championship the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.
"We went one-nil up and had a