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How do you improve a excellent veteran squad who have won consecutive championships, including a league-cup double with thirty wins from 32 games?

Recruit a raft of ex- professionals that have competed at the highest tier of club and global football as you pursue additional trophies.

A Greater Manchester club boasts an amateur vets team with nine ex- Premier League footballers in their current squad.

222 Top Division Goals, 325 Global Caps

Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are based in south the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets League Top Tier.

The lineup this season includes 9 ex- Premier League footballers, with a collective over 1,800 top-flight matches.

This star-studded team also boasts over 220 top division goals and 325 international appearances.

The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven goals in over 100 games for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from German league club SC Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse had his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field match against defending champions their rivals and netted all six goals in a 6-2 victory - featuring a half-hour first-half triple.

The squad for this campaign also features former pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker 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 players have won fifteen major trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of around £123m.

Well-Known Names and International Stars

Stephen Ireland started playing for the team in pre-season this summer through good friend and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to join in.

Ex- Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted 12 goals in 65 Premier League games for Everton and even now attends their home games, also had his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Blue training kit as their uniform.

"My mate Stephen Ireland said 'come and play, it's good fun'," commented the striker.

"After that he told me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Everton shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!

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

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

So great is the bench strength at the club, Niasse had his debut at defender.

"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy running and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.

"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.

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

'Surreal Experience

In addition to the forward's 6 goals on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored five on his first appearance and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a hat-trick in one game up front.

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

One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced former Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young son who Emile Heskey was.

He has appeared at 2 World Cups for his country, in addition to featuring in more than two hundred top-flight games.

"It was spreading like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League players," remarked Barrow.

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

"Also Heskey came on and he's has over 60 English appearances.

"Our side competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a player sent off and it was tough.

"We really haven't stopped talking about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the journey home.

"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of normal guys.

"Now we are eager for the second match."

'We'll Still Take the Title'

The manager coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.

"We scored one-nil ahead and had a