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How can you boost a excellent veteran team that have won consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 wins from 32 games?

Recruit a raft of former professionals that have competed at the highest tier of club and international football as you target additional trophies.

A Greater Manchester team boasts an non-professional vets team with 9 former top-flight footballers in their current roster.

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

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

Their roster this season boasts 9 former top-flight footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 elite games.

The star-studded roster also includes 222 Premier League scores and over 320 international appearances.

The squad feature one forward, who notched 37 goals in 117 games for his former club after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in 2012.

He had his debut for the team in their most recent home-field game against defending champions their rivals and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - featuring a half-hour first-half hat-trick.

The roster for this campaign also features ex- professionals such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former Premier League footballers have claimed 15 big honors and transferred for combined transfer sums of around £123m.

Household Figures and Global Players

Ireland began turning out for the side during preseason this season through good friend and current team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then asked additional former professionals, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.

Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who netted 12 scores in 65 top-flight matches for Everton and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"My mate Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," said Niasse.

"After that he told me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I thought this is strange for me!

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

"The spectators who come and watch are happy and to make a day if they see us competing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can play, with organisation of course."

So great is the strength in depth at the club, he had his debut at defender.

"It's a little unusual but then, I love sprinting and just move inside - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

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

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

'Surreal Experience

In addition to Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Ireland has scored eight in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored 5 on his first match and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a hat-trick in one game up front.

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

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the wing for the opposition, faced former Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young boy who Emile Heskey was.

He has played at two global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than two hundred top-flight games.

"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League players," said Barrow.

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

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

"Our side competed well for a solid twenty minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.

"Our group literally have not ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the journey home.

"The opponents were all dead sound, 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 Take the Title'

The manager coaches the opposition vets side, who won the Premier Tier title last season, together with Paul Maguire.

"Our team scored one-nil ahead and had a