Meet this Weekend Division Club With 1,800 English Top Division Games

What can you improve a excellent experienced side who have secured back-to-back titles, including a double triumph boasting 30 victories from 32 games?

Bring in a group of ex- professionals who have competed at the top tier of club and global soccer as you pursue additional trophies.

One Greater Manchester club fields an non-professional veterans squad with nine ex- top-flight players in their active squad.

222 Top Division Goals, 325 Global Caps

Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are situated in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Top Division.

Their lineup this season boasts nine former top-flight players, with a collective over 1,800 elite games.

This star-studded team also boasts over 220 top division goals and 325 global appearances.

They include Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven scores in over 100 games for his former club after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse made his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match versus reigning champions their rivals and netted all six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.

The team for this campaign also features ex- pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the ex- Premier League footballers have won fifteen major honors and transferred for total transfer fees of around £123m.

Household Names and Global Stars

Stephen Ireland started turning out for the side in pre-season this season through close friend and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then invited additional former professionals, who all play in a weekly small-sided match, to participate.

Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who scored twelve goals in sixty-five Premier League matches for Everton and even now goes to their home games, also had his first appearance against the opposition - who are located in the city and use an Blue training kit as their uniform.

"My friend Stephen told me 'join and play, it's enjoyable'," commented Niasse.

"After that he told me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the surprise 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 play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?

"Those people who turn up and see are pleased and to make a day if they watch us playing there and to pose 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, he had his first game at defender.

"That's a little unusual but then, I enjoy running and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.

"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.

"The running is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."

Dreamlike' Feeling

Along with the forward's six goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit 5 on his first match and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, notched a triple in one game up front.

Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Division with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

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

He has appeared at two World Cups for Honduras, in addition to featuring in more than two hundred Premier League games.

"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these former top-flight stars," remarked the player.

"I felt I was a bit awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.

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

"We held our own for a solid twenty minutes but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.

"We literally haven't ceased talking about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the way home.

"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of normal fellas.

"Now we are eager for the return fixture."

'We'll Still Take the League'

Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate veterans side, who secured the Top Division title the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.

"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a