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How do you enhance a stellar veteran team who have secured consecutive titles, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 victories from 32 matches?

Bring in a group of former pro players who have competed at the elite tier of club and international football as you pursue more honors.

One Manchester team has an amateur vets team with nine ex- top-flight footballers in their active roster.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, 325 International Caps

Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are based in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Premier Division.

The squad list this campaign boasts 9 former top-flight footballers, with a combined nearly 1,800 elite matches.

This star-studded roster also boasts over 220 Premier League scores and 325 international appearances.

The squad include one forward, who netted 37 goals in over 100 games for his former club after joining them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.

He made his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home-field match versus reigning champions their rivals and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - featuring a 32-minute opening period triple.

Wythenshawe's squad for this campaign also features former professionals such as England and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the ex- top-flight players have secured fifteen big honors and moved for combined transfer sums of about £123m.

Famous Figures and International Players

Ireland started turning out for the side in preseason this summer through good friend and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then invited other ex-pros, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.

Former Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted twelve goals in 65 Premier League games for the Toffees 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 training kit as their strip.

"A mate Stephen Ireland said 'come and play, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.

"After that he informed me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Everton kits - I thought this is wrong for me!

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

"Those people who turn up and see are happy and to give someone's moment if they see us playing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he had his first game at defender.

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

"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.

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

Unreal Feeling

In addition to the forward's six scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in three games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit 5 on his debut match and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one match up front.

Wythenshawe are top of the Top Tier with three wins from three and a GD of +19.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Latics full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at two global tournaments for his country, in as well as featuring in over two hundred Premier League games.

"It was going round like a rumor they had these former top-flight players," said the player.

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

"Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's got 60-odd English caps.

"We competed well for a solid 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.

"Our group really haven't stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the way home.

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

"Now we can't wait for the return match."

'We'll Still Take the League'

Andy Kirby manages the opposition vets side, who secured the Top Tier championship the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.

"We went 1-0 up and had a