Discover this Weekend Division Team With 1,800 Top-Flight Games
How do you improve a stellar experienced team who have secured back-to-back titles, including a league-cup double with thirty victories from thirty-two games?
Sign a group of ex- professionals who have played at the highest level of club football and global football as you aim for further silverware.
One Greater Manchester side has an non-professional vets squad with nine former Premier League players in their present lineup.
222 Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Caps
The team Vets Over-35s are based in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Veterans Division Top Tier.
Their roster this campaign includes 9 former top-flight footballers, with a total 1,801 Premier League games.
The high-profile team also includes over 220 top division scores and over 320 global caps.
They include Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven scores in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He made his debut for the team in their last home game against reigning champions their rivals and scored every one of the six goals in a 6-2 win - featuring a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.
Wythenshawe's squad for this season also includes ex- pros such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the ex- top-flight footballers have claimed fifteen big honors and moved for total transfer sums of approximately £123 million.
Well-Known Names and Global Stars
Ireland began turning out for the side during preseason this summer through close mate and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then invited other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to join in.
Ex- Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 scores in 65 Premier League games for the Toffees and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.
"My mate Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.
"Then he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Everton shirts - I say this is wrong for me!
"If you still enjoy the game and you know you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?
"Those spectators who come and see are happy and to make a day if they see us playing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
So great is the squad depth at the club, Niasse had his first game at defender.
"That's a bit unusual but then, I love running and just move inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.
"The movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."
Dreamlike' Scenario
In addition to the forward's six goals on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in three appearances for the side, while Boyd scored 5 on his first match and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a triple in one game as a striker.
The team are leading of the Top Tier with three victories from 3 and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Wigan defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.
He has appeared at two World Cups for his country, in addition to featuring in more than two hundred Premier League matches.
"It was going round like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League stars," said the player.
"I think I was a bit awestruck facing him to be honest.
"Even Heskey came on and he's got 60-odd English caps.
"We competed well for a solid 20 minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
"Our group really haven't ceased talking about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the way home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the second match."
'We'll Still Win the League'
Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans side, who won the Premier Tier title the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.
"Our team scored 1-0 ahead and had a