Meet the Weekend Division Club With Nearly Two Thousand English Top Division Matches
What can you enhance a excellent veteran side that have secured back-to-back championships, including a league-cup double boasting thirty wins from 32 games?
Bring in a group of ex- pro players that have performed at the highest tier of club football and global football as you aim for more honors.
One Manchester club has an amateur veterans team with 9 ex- top-flight players in their current roster.
222 Top Division Scores, 325 International Caps
The team Veterans Over-35s are based in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire Veterans League Premier Division.
The roster this campaign features nine ex- top-flight footballers, with a total 1,801 top-flight appearances.
This elite squad also includes over 220 Premier League scores and 325 global caps.
They include one forward, who netted 37 scores in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after moving to them for £9m from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse had his first appearance for the team in their last home game versus defending title holders their rivals and netted all six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's team for this campaign also features ex- pros such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the ex- top-flight players have won fifteen major trophies and transferred for combined transfer fees of around £123m.
Famous Figures and Global Stars
Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team in preseason this season through good friend and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked additional ex-pros, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to participate.
Ex- Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 top-flight matches for the Toffees and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their uniform.
"A friend Stephen Ireland told me 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.
"After that he informed me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!
"When you still enjoy football and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"Those spectators who come and watch are pleased and to give someone's moment if they see us playing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the joy of us having somewhere we can play, with structure of course."
Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his first game at full-back.
"It's a bit different but then, I love sprinting and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.
"That running is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Scenario
Along with the forward's 6 scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in 3 games for the side, while George Boyd hit five on his debut match and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
The team are leading of the Top Division with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of +19.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young son who Emile Heskey was.
He has played at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to featuring in over 200 Premier League matches.
"The news was going round like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League stars," said the player.
"I felt I was a bit starstruck playing against him to be honest.
"Also Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd England caps.
"We competed well for a good 20 minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
"We really have not stopped talking about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the way home.
"The opponents were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of regular fellas.
"Now we can't wait for the second match."
'We'll Still Win the Title'
Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Premier Division title last season, along with his co-manager.
"We went 1-0 up and had a