Introduce the Sunday Division Squad With Over 1,800 English Top Division Appearances
How do you improve a outstanding veteran side that have won consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 wins from 32 games?
Sign a raft of former pro players who have played at the elite tier of club football and international football as you aim for further honors.
One Manchester team fields an non-professional veterans squad with nine former top-flight players in their current lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 Global Appearances
The team Veterans Over 35s are based in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Veterans League Top Tier.
Their lineup this campaign features 9 ex- top-flight footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 top-flight matches.
The star-studded roster also boasts over 220 top division goals and 325 international caps.
The squad feature one forward, who netted thirty-seven goals in 117 games for his former club after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse had his debut for the team in their most recent home-field game versus reigning champions their rivals and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - featuring a 32-minute opening period triple.
The squad for this season also features ex- professionals such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
In total, the ex- Premier League players have secured 15 significant trophies and transferred for total transfer sums of around £123 million.
Well-Known Names and International Players
Stephen Ireland started playing for the team during preseason this season through close friend and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then asked other ex-pros, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side game, to join in.
Former Senegal forward Niasse, who scored twelve scores in 65 top-flight games for Everton and even now goes to their home games, also had his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and use an Everton training kit as their uniform.
"My mate Stephen said 'come and play, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.
"Then he told me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Blue kits - I say 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?
"The people who come and see are happy and to give a day if they watch us playing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the joy of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at full-back.
"That's a little unusual but then, I love sprinting and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.
"I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"That movement is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."
Dreamlike' Feeling
Along with Cisse's six scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in three games for the side, while George Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one game up front.
The team are top of the Top Division with three victories from 3 and a GD of +19.
One opponent, 38, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - 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 playing in more than two hundred Premier League games.
"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these former top-flight stars," remarked the player.
"I felt I was a little starstruck facing him to be honest.
"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has 60-odd English appearances.
"Our side competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.
"Our group really haven't stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the journey home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of normal guys.
"Now we can't wait for the return fixture."
'We'll Still Win the League'
The manager manages the Collegiate vets side, who won the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"We scored one-nil ahead and had a