Introduce the Weekend League Team With 1,800 English Top Division Matches

How do you enhance a stellar veteran squad who have secured back-to-back titles, featuring a double triumph with 30 victories from thirty-two matches?

Sign a collection of former pro players who have competed at the elite level of club football and international soccer as you target more honors.

One Manchester club has an amateur veterans team with 9 former top-flight footballers in their current lineup.

222 Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Appearances

Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are situated in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Vets League Premier Tier.

Their roster this campaign features 9 ex- top-flight footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 Premier League appearances.

This high-profile squad also includes 222 top division goals and 325 international appearances.

They feature Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 goals in over 100 appearances for his former club after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga club Freiburg in 2012.

He had his debut for the team in their most recent home match against reigning champions their rivals and netted all six goals in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute first-half triple.

Wythenshawe's squad for this season also features ex- pros such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the ex- top-flight footballers have won 15 big trophies and transferred for combined transfer sums of around £123 million.

Famous Names and Global Stars

Stephen Ireland began playing for the team during pre-season this season through close friend and present team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then asked other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to participate.

Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve goals in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and use an Blue training kit as their strip.

"My friend Stephen Ireland told me 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," said the striker.

"Then he told me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Blue shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!

"When you still love the game and you feel you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?

"Those fans who turn up and see are happy and to give a day if they see us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he had his first game at defender.

"That's a bit different but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go forward - 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.

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

'Surreal Scenario

Along with Cisse's 6 scores on debut, Ireland has scored eight in 3 games for the side, while George Boyd hit 5 on his first match and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a triple in one game as a striker.

The team are top of the Premier Division with three victories from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

One opponent, 38, who plays on the flank for the opposition, faced ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young son who Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than two hundred top-flight matches.

"The news was going round like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League stars," remarked the player.

"I felt I was a little awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.

"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has 60-odd England caps.

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

"Our group really have not ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.

"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a bunch of normal guys.

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

'We'll Still Take the League'

The manager coaches the opposition veterans team, who secured the Top Division title last season, along with his co-manager.

"We went one-nil ahead and had a