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How can you improve a stellar veteran squad that have secured back-to-back titles, featuring a double triumph with thirty wins from 32 games?

Recruit a raft of ex- pro players who have performed at the top tier of club and international football as you target more trophies.

One Manchester team fields an amateur veterans squad with 9 former Premier League players in their active squad.

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

Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are located in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Top Division.

Their roster this campaign boasts 9 former Premier League footballers, with a collective over 1,800 top-flight matches.

This star-studded team also includes over 220 top division scores and over 320 international caps.

They include Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 scores in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after signing for them for nine million pounds from German league club Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse had his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match against defending champions their rivals and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - including a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.

The squad for this campaign also features ex- pros such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former top-flight players have secured 15 big trophies and transferred for combined transfer fees of approximately £123m.

Household Names and Global Stars

Ireland began turning out for the team in preseason this summer through good mate and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then invited other ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to join in.

Former Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 goals in 65 top-flight matches for Everton and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.

"My mate Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's a laugh'," commented Niasse.

"Then he told me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Everton shirts - I thought this is strange for me!

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

"The people who turn up and see are pleased and to give a day if they watch us competing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."

So great is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at defender.

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

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

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

Unreal Experience

Along with the forward's 6 scores on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his first match and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one game as a striker.

The team are leading of the Premier Division with 3 wins from 3 and a GD of +19.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.

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

"The news was spreading like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League players," said the player.

"I felt I was a bit awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.

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

"We competed well for a good 20 mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.

"We really have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the journey home.

"The opponents were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of regular fellas.

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

We Will Still Take the League'

Andy Kirby coaches the opposition vets team, who won the Top Tier title last season, along with his co-manager.

"We went 1-0 ahead and had a