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How do you improve a excellent veteran team who have secured back-to-back titles, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 wins from thirty-two matches?

Recruit a group of former professionals who have played at the highest tier of club football and international football as you aim for more silverware.

One Manchester club fields an amateur vets squad with 9 former Premier League footballers in their active lineup.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Appearances

The team Vets Over-35s are situated in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire Vets Division Top Division.

Their roster this season boasts 9 ex- top-flight players, with a total 1,801 Premier League games.

This star-studded roster also contains 222 top division scores and over 320 global appearances.

The squad feature one forward, who notched 37 goals in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home match against reigning champions their rivals and scored all six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.

The squad for this campaign also features former pros such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the former Premier League footballers have claimed 15 big trophies and moved for total transfer fees of approximately £123 million.

Household Names and International Stars

Stephen Ireland began playing for the side in preseason this summer through good mate and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked additional former professionals, who all play in a weekly small-sided game, to join in.

Ex- Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve goals in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and still goes to their home games, also made his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in the city and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"My mate Stephen told me 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," commented the striker.

"After that he told me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Everton kits - I say this is wrong for me!

"If you still enjoy the game and you know you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?

"Those spectators who turn up and watch are happy and to make someone's day if they watch us competing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the joy of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

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

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

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

"That running is what I'm after. It's good fun."

'Surreal Experience

In addition to Cisse's six scores on debut, Ireland has netted 8 in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one game up front.

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

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Wigan defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young boy who Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at two global tournaments for his country, in addition to featuring in over two hundred top-flight games.

"The news was going round like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League stars," said Barrow.

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

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

"We held our own for a solid 20 mins but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.

"Our group really have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling 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 Win the Title'

The manager coaches the Collegiate vets team, who secured the Premier Tier title the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.

"Our team went one-nil ahead and had a