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How do you improve a excellent experienced side that have won back-to-back titles, featuring a league-cup double with 30 victories from thirty-two games?

Sign a raft of former pro players that have performed at the highest level of club and international football as you pursue more trophies.

One Greater Manchester club fields an non-professional vets team with nine former Premier League players in their current roster.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 International Appearances

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

The squad list this season boasts nine ex- top-flight footballers, with a total over 1,800 elite matches.

This high-profile squad also contains 222 top division scores and over 320 international caps.

The squad include one forward, who netted 37 goals in 117 games for his former club after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field game against reigning title holders their rivals and netted all six goals in a six-two win - featuring a half-hour first-half hat-trick.

The roster for this season also includes ex- pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the ex- top-flight players have claimed 15 significant trophies and moved for total transfer fees of around £123 million.

Famous Figures and Global Stars

Stephen Ireland started playing for the team in preseason this summer through good friend and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to join in.

Former Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 top-flight games for Everton and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut against the opposition - who are located in the city and use an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.

"My friend Stephen Ireland said 'join and play, it's a laugh'," commented Niasse.

"After that he told me we were playing a side from the city and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Blue shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!

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

"Those fans who turn up and watch are pleased and to make a day if they see us competing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

Such is the strength in depth at the club, he made his debut at full-back.

"It's a little different but then, I enjoy running and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he added.

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

"That movement is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."

'Surreal Scenario

Along with the forward's six goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in three appearances for the side, while George Boyd hit 5 on his first match and Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a triple in one match up front.

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

One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at two World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in more than 200 top-flight matches.

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

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

"Even Heskey got on and he's got over 60 England appearances.

"We held our own for a good twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.

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

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

"Now we are eager for the return fixture."

We Will Still Take the League'

Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Premier Tier title last season, along with his co-manager.

"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a