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How can you improve a stellar veteran side who have secured back-to-back titles, featuring a league-cup double with thirty wins from thirty-two games?

Sign a group of ex- pro players who have played at the elite level of club football and global football as you aim for additional trophies.

One Greater Manchester side has an amateur vets team with 9 ex- top-flight footballers in their active roster.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 Global Appearances

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

Their roster this season includes nine former top-flight players, with a collective over 1,800 Premier League appearances.

This high-profile team also boasts 222 Premier League goals and over 320 global caps.

The squad include Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven goals in 117 games for his former club after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in 2012.

He made his first appearance for the team in their last home-field game versus defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six scores in a 6-2 win - featuring a half-hour opening period triple.

Wythenshawe's team for this season also includes former professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

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

Household Names and Global Stars

Ireland began turning out for the side in pre-season this season through good friend and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited additional ex-pros, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side game, to join in.

Former Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve goals in 65 top-flight matches for the Toffees and still goes to their home games, also had his debut against the opposition - who are located in the city and wear an Blue training kit as their uniform.

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

"Then he informed me we were playing a team from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Blue kits - I say this is wrong for me!

"If you still enjoy football and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?

"The people who turn up and see are happy and to give a day if they see us competing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the joy of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."

So great is the squad depth at the club, Niasse had his debut at full-back.

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

"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue running.

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

'Surreal Scenario

Along with the forward's 6 goals on debut, Ireland has scored eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his first match and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a triple in one game up front.

Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Division with 3 wins from 3 and a GD of +19.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for Honduras, in as well as featuring in more than 200 Premier League matches.

"The news was spreading like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League players," remarked the player.

"I think I was a bit awestruck playing against him to be honest.

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

"We competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.

"We really haven't stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the journey home.

"They were all friendly, 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 Take the League'

Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate vets team, who won the Premier Division title last season, together with his co-manager.

"Our team went 1-0 up and had a