Introduce the Sunday League Club With Nearly Two Thousand Premier League Matches
How can you boost a stellar veteran squad who have secured consecutive championships, including a league-cup double boasting thirty wins from thirty-two games?
Recruit a group of former pro players that have competed at the elite tier of club and international football as you pursue further trophies.
A Greater Manchester club boasts an non-professional vets squad with 9 ex- top-flight footballers in their active roster.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Caps
The team Vets Over-35s are situated in south the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets League Premier Division.
Their lineup this campaign features nine former Premier League players, with a combined 1,801 elite games.
This star-studded squad also contains 222 top division goals and 325 international caps.
They include one forward, who notched 37 scores in 117 appearances for his former club after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse had his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home game versus reigning champions their rivals and netted every one of the six scores in a six-two win - including a half-hour opening period hat-trick.
The roster for this campaign also includes ex- professionals such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- top-flight footballers have secured fifteen significant honors and moved for combined transfer fees of approximately £123m.
Well-Known Figures and International Stars
Stephen Ireland started playing for the side during pre-season this summer through close mate and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then invited other former professionals, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side game, to join in.
Former Senegalese forward Niasse, who netted twelve goals in sixty-five Premier League games for Everton and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their uniform.
"A friend Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," said the striker.
"Then he told me we were facing a team from the city and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Everton shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!
"When you still love football and you know you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?
"The spectators who turn up and see are happy and to give a moment if they watch us competing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the pleasure of us having a place we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at defender.
"It's a bit different but then, I love running and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"The movement is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Scenario
In addition to Cisse's six scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored 5 on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Tier with three victories from three and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for the opposition, came up against ex- Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at 2 World Cups for his country, in addition to featuring in more than two hundred Premier League matches.
"The news was going round like wildfire they had all these former top-flight players," remarked the player.
"I felt I was a bit starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has 60-odd English appearances.
"We competed well for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"We really have not ceased talking about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home.
"The opponents were all really nice, 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 Take the League'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate veterans side, who won the Top Division title last season, together with Paul Maguire.
"We went 1-0 up and had a