Introduce the Weekend Division Team Featuring 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances

How can you enhance a excellent veteran side who have won consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 victories from thirty-two matches?

Recruit a group of ex- professionals who have performed at the highest level of club and international soccer as you pursue additional trophies.

One Greater Manchester team has an amateur vets squad with nine ex- Premier League footballers in their active squad.

222 Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Caps

Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are based in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Premier Division.

The roster this campaign includes 9 former top-flight players, with a total over 1,800 Premier League matches.

This high-profile team also contains 222 top division goals and over 320 international appearances.

The squad include Papiss Cisse, who notched 37 goals in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home game against defending title holders their rivals and netted all six scores in a six-two victory - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's team for this campaign also features ex- pros such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former top-flight footballers have secured fifteen major honors and transferred for combined transfer sums of approximately £123m.

Household Names and Global Players

Stephen Ireland started playing for the side in preseason this summer through good mate and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then invited other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek small-sided match, to join in.

Former Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve goals in 65 Premier League matches for Everton and even now goes to their home games, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are based in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"My mate Stephen Ireland said 'join and play, it's a laugh'," commented Niasse.

"Then he informed me we were facing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Everton kits - I thought this is strange for me!

"If you still love football and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?

"The fans who turn up and watch are happy and to make someone's moment if they see us competing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the joy of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his first game at defender.

"That's a bit unusual but then, I love running and just go forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.

"I tell my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.

"That movement is what I'm seeking. It's enjoyable."

Dreamlike' Feeling

In addition to the forward's 6 goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in three games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his first appearance and Lescott, a defender by position, notched a triple in one game up front.

The team are top of the Top Tier with three wins from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for the opposition, came up against ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as featuring in over 200 Premier League matches.

"The news was spreading like a rumor they had all these former top-flight players," said the player.

"I felt I was a little starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.

"Also Heskey came on and he's has over 60 English appearances.

"Our side held our own for a good twenty minutes but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.

"Our group literally have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the journey home.

"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of normal fellas.

"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."

'We'll Still Win the Title'

Andy Kirby manages the opposition vets side, who secured the Premier Tier championship last season, along with Paul Maguire.

"We scored 1-0 ahead and had a