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How do you improve a stellar veteran team that have won consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double with 30 victories from 32 games?

Recruit a raft of ex- pro players who have played at the highest tier of club football and global football as you pursue more trophies.

One Greater Manchester side has an amateur veterans squad with nine ex- top-flight footballers in their present lineup.

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

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

The squad list this season includes nine former Premier League footballers, with a collective 1,801 elite matches.

The star-studded team also includes 222 top division scores and 325 international appearances.

They include Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven goals in over 100 games for Newcastle United after moving to them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

He made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home-field match versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six scores in a 6-2 win - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick.

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

In total, the former top-flight footballers have secured fifteen major honors and moved for total transfer fees of around £123m.

Household Names and International Players

Ireland began playing for the side in preseason this season through good mate and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to participate.

Former Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted 12 scores in 65 top-flight matches for the Toffees and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and use an Everton training kit as their uniform.

"A mate Stephen Ireland said 'join and play, it's enjoyable'," commented the striker.

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

"When you still love football and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?

"The people who come and see are happy and to give a day if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - 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 Wythenshawe, Niasse had his first game at defender.

"That's a bit different but then, I love running and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.

"I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.

"The movement is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."

Dreamlike' Experience

In addition to Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in three games for the side, while George Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a hat-trick in one match as a striker.

The team are top of the Top Tier with three victories from 3 and a goal difference of +19.

Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against former Wigan full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for his country, in addition to featuring in more than 200 Premier League games.

"The news was going round like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League players," remarked Barrow.

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

"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has over 60 English caps.

"Our side held our own for a good 20 mins but then we had a player sent off and it was tough.

"Our group literally have not ceased talking about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the way home.

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

"Now we are eager for the second fixture."

'We'll Still Win the League'

Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate vets team, who secured the Top Tier championship the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.

"Our team went 1-0 ahead and had a