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How do you improve a excellent veteran squad who have won consecutive championships, including a double triumph with 30 victories from thirty-two matches?

Bring in a raft of ex- professionals who have competed at the highest level of club football and international soccer as you pursue more trophies.

One Greater Manchester club fields an amateur vets team with 9 former Premier League footballers in their active roster.

222 Top Division Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances

Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are based in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Top Division.

The roster this season features nine former Premier League footballers, with a collective nearly 1,800 top-flight appearances.

The elite roster also includes 222 top division scores and over 320 global appearances.

They feature Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 scores in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after moving to them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.

He had his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home-field match against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six goals in a 6-2 victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's roster for this season also features former professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the ex- top-flight footballers have secured fifteen significant trophies and transferred for total transfer sums of approximately £123m.

Well-Known Figures and Global Stars

Stephen Ireland began playing for the side in preseason this summer through close friend and present team player Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.

Ex- Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 Premier League matches for the Toffees and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.

"A mate Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.

"After that he told me we were playing a team from the city and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Blue shirts - I say this is strange for me!

"If you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?

"Those spectators who turn up and watch are pleased and to make a day if they see us competing there and to pose us questions - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

Such is the bench strength at the club, Niasse had his debut at full-back.

"That's a little unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

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

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

Unreal Experience

In addition to Cisse's six scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in three games for the side, while George Boyd hit five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one match as a striker.

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

Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against former Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young son who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at two global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to playing in over 200 Premier League games.

"The news was going round like wildfire they had these former top-flight stars," remarked Barrow.

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

"Also Heskey got on and he's got 60-odd England caps.

"We held our own for a solid 20 minutes but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.

"Our group really haven't stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home.

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

"Now we are eager for the second fixture."

'We'll Still Take the Title'

Andy Kirby coaches the opposition vets team, who won the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.

"We went one-nil up and had a