Meet this Weekend League Squad Boasting 1,800 English Top Division Games

How can you boost a excellent experienced team who have claimed consecutive championships, including a league-cup double with thirty victories from 32 matches?

Recruit a raft of ex- pro players who have performed at the top tier of club football and global soccer as you pursue additional trophies.

One Greater Manchester team has an amateur veterans squad with 9 former top-flight footballers in their present roster.

222 Top Division Scores, 325 Global Caps

Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are situated in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Premier Division.

Their lineup this season features nine ex- top-flight players, with a collective over 1,800 top-flight games.

The star-studded roster also boasts over 220 Premier League goals and 325 global appearances.

They include Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 scores in over 100 games for Newcastle United after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse had his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home-field match versus reigning champions their rivals and scored every one of the six goals in a 6-2 victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.

The roster for this season also includes former pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the ex- top-flight players have won fifteen significant trophies and moved for combined transfer fees of approximately £123 million.

Famous Figures and Global Players

Ireland began playing for the side in preseason this summer through good friend and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side match, to join in.

Former Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 goals in 65 top-flight games for Everton and still goes to their home games, also made his debut against the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.

"A friend Stephen said 'join and have a game, it's good fun'," commented the striker.

"Then he told me we were facing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!

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

"Those people who turn up and see are happy and to give someone's day if they watch us competing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the joy of us having somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."

Such is the bench strength at the club, Niasse made his first game at defender.

"It's a little unusual 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 continue attacking.

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

Dreamlike' Feeling

In addition to Cisse's six scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a triple in one match as a striker.

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

One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.

He has appeared at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in more than 200 top-flight matches.

"It was spreading like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League players," remarked the player.

"I think I was a bit starstruck facing him to be honest.

"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has over 60 England caps.

"We competed well for a solid 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.

"Our group really have not stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the way home.

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

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

We Will Still Win the League'

Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate veterans side, who won the Top Division title last season, along with Paul Maguire.

"We went one-nil ahead and had a