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How do you improve a excellent veteran side who have claimed back-to-back championships, including a double triumph boasting 30 victories from 32 matches?

Recruit a raft of ex- professionals who have competed at the highest tier of club football and global football as you target further honors.

A Greater Manchester club has an non-professional veterans team with nine former Premier League players in their present squad.

222 Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Caps

Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are based in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Top Tier.

The lineup this season boasts nine ex- Premier League players, with a combined over 1,800 elite appearances.

The high-profile roster also contains over 220 Premier League scores and 325 global caps.

The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 goals in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse made his first appearance for the team in their last home match against reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.

The team for this campaign also includes former professionals such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the former Premier League players have secured 15 major honors and moved for total transfer sums of about £123 million.

Well-Known Names and Global Players

Stephen Ireland started turning out for the side in preseason this season through good friend and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then asked additional ex-pros, who all play in a weekly small-sided game, to join in.

Ex- Senegal striker Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five top-flight matches for Everton and still attends their home games, also made his debut versus the opposition - who are located in the city and wear an Blue training kit as their strip.

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

"After that he informed me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them wearing Everton shirts - I say this is strange for me!

"If you still love the game and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?

"The spectators who turn up and see are happy and to give someone's moment if they watch us competing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the joy of us getting somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."

So great is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his first game at full-back.

"That's a little different but then, I enjoy running and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.

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

"The running is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."

'Surreal Scenario

In addition to Cisse's 6 goals on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in 3 games for the side, while Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, scored a triple in one game up front.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Tier with three victories from 3 and a goal difference of +19.

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young boy who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in more than two hundred Premier League games.

"It was spreading like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League stars," said Barrow.

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

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

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

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

"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a bunch of normal guys.

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

We Will Still Take the League'

The manager coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Premier Tier title the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.

"Our team went one-nil up and had a