Can We Play You Every Week…?

ARTICLE BY SUPERSUB

A chant often heard at football grounds up & down the nation, particularly when a game against local rivals is heading towards a resounding & joyous victory, but there’s one place that it probably won’t be heard & that’s on the Isles of Scilly (IoS), during a game between local rivals Woolpack Wanderers & Garrison Gunners, but there’s a very good reason for that.

The Isles of Scilly are a small archipelago, situated approx 30 miles off the southwestern tip of Cornwall. Of the more than 140 islands that make up the IoS, St Mary’s, home to the these two clubs, is by far the largest, despite measuring just over 6 sq km. The 2021 census gave the total population of the isles to be just over 2,100.

For the last 30 years, the IoS football league has been dominated (& won) by just two teams, the aforementioned Wanderers & Gunners. Mind you, this dominance is hardly surprising, as these are the only two teams that play in the league & they are the only teams on the IoS that currently take part in competitive football competitions.

Welcome to the world’s smallest football league which, as a member of the English Football Association, has received a regular entry in the Guinness Book of Records.

To keep things fresh, no player has a pre-ordained team at the start of every season. Instead the two captains for that year pick new squads just as schoolchildren do on the playground, taking it in turns until there are no players left. The order of the selections are kept secret however,

to avoid letting the last picks know when they were chosen – after all, with only 2,100 residents on the islands, the league can hardly risk putting any players’ noses out of joint.

Weather permitting, the two sides do battle every Sunday morning between October and Easter on the same pitch with the same players in the same kit. In addition to the league championship, in which both teams play each other 18 times a season, there are also two cup competitions: the Wholesalers and the Foredeck Cup. As if that were not enough, the ‘Old Men versus the Youngsters’ game is played on Boxing Day each year.

“It’s considered to be a bit ridiculous and like the old cliche of ‘can we play you every week?’,” explains Will Lethbridge, who grew up on the islands and has played in the league for several years. “People ask if it gets a bit boring and if it’s repetitive, but it’s good to have a run around and it’s good fun. A large number of us are friends and have known each other since school, so it’s very much the social side as much as a bit of sporting competition.

Being a small island community also means that some players are called away mid-game to deal with other issues, particularly policemen or firemen who are playing while on call. Sometimes, those impromptu absences can have a big bearing on the final outcome of a match. Will explains, “There’s a guy called Dave Mumford – or Chuffer – who’s a farmer and a few years ago his phone started going at half time and they said ‘oi, your cows have escaped’, so he had to run off to find them,” explains

Gibbons. “We were 2-0 up at that point and had to go down to 10 men & we ended up losing 3-2. In the end, it turned out they weren’t even his cows.”

Maintaining the necessary number of players has long been a concern for the Isles of Scilly Football League, with a lack of any further education options on the islands after the age of 16 meaning many young hopefuls move to Cornwall to continue their studies just as they’re ready to play. Some people, like Lethbridge, return to the islands when they get older and bolster the ranks, while anybody of playing age that moves to Scilly is soon approached about taking part.

Appropriately enough for the smallest league in the world, a ‘Best of Scilly’ XI takes on a team from Cornwall each year to claim the footballing world’s smallest trophy. At just six millimetres high, the trophy presented to the winners of the Lyonesse Cup has also earned itself an entry in the Guinness Book of Records, while a replica is even on display at the FIFA World Football Museum in Zurich.

So, officially, the world’s smallest football league, with an opportunity to play for the world’s smallest trophy – what’s not to like..? Long may it continue that they can, indeed, play each other every week.