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What can you improve a stellar veteran team that have claimed back-to-back titles, featuring a league-cup double with thirty victories from thirty-two games?

Recruit a raft of former professionals who have played at the elite tier of club football and global football as you pursue additional honors.

One Manchester club fields an non-professional veterans squad with nine ex- Premier League players in their active roster.

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

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

The roster this campaign features nine former Premier League players, with a combined nearly 1,800 elite games.

This elite roster also includes over 220 Premier League scores and 325 global appearances.

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

Cisse had his first appearance for the team in their last home game versus defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.

The roster for this season also features former pros such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the ex- Premier League footballers have claimed fifteen major honors and transferred for total transfer fees of approximately £123m.

Household Names and International Players

Ireland began playing for the side during pre-season this season through close friend and present team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then asked additional former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to join in.

Ex- Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 goals in 65 Premier League matches for Everton and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and use an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.

"A friend Stephen said 'join and play, it's enjoyable'," said the striker.

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

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

"The fans who turn up and watch are happy and to make a moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the joy of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his debut at defender.

"That's a little unusual but then, I love running and just go 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 attacking.

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

Unreal Scenario

In addition to Cisse's 6 goals on debut, Ireland has scored eight in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a triple in one match as a striker.

The team are leading of the Top Tier with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for his country, in as well as featuring in over two hundred top-flight games.

"It was going round like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League stars," remarked the player.

"I felt I was a little awestruck facing him to be honest.

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

"Our side held our own for a solid twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.

"We literally haven't stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the journey home.

"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of regular guys.

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

'We'll Still Win the Title'

Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate veterans side, who secured the Premier Division championship last season, together with Paul Maguire.

"We scored one-nil up and had a