Fascinating Football: The smallest league in the world

File photo

It is often seen that half way through the season, the race for the title becomes a ‘two or a three-horse race’.

In some countries, the gulf in quality between the top teams and the rest of the leagues is so high that right from the outset, there are only two or three teams who can realistically win the league and the rest of the clubs are there to make up the numbers.

But imagine a league with only two teams, no front-runners, no mid-table teams, no relegation contenders. Just two teams – going head to head with each other – with a 0.5 probability of winning the league.

The concept seems pretty weird to imagine, right? Well, the people of Isles of Scilly don’t need to imagine the scenario. For them its a reality that they experience every season.

The Isles of Scilly are an archipelago of five inhabited islands and numerous other small rocky islets off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain.

The five islands St. Mary’s, Tresco, St. Martin’s, St. Agnes and Bryher combined have a population of not more than 3,500. Although the sporting highlight of the isles is ‘Gig racing’ which is a race of rowing boats (gigs) with a crew of six, it is the football league of the region ‘Isles of Scilly Football League’ that stands out as a landmark for reportedly being the smallest football league in the world.

The two clubs or rather teams are the Garrison Gunners and the Woolpack Wanderers.

These two teams meet 18 times in the league, once in the ‘final’ of the Wholesalers Cup and over two legs to decide the winners of the Foredeck Cup.

The season begins with a Charity Shield which quite sardonically pits the winner of the last year’s league against the second placed team. Thus, in all, the two teams face each other 22 times in the season. The league is recognized by the Football Association (FA).

A fascinating aspect is how the teams are formed. The selection procedure is the ‘take your pick school days kind of selection policy’. At the start of each season, the two captains sit down and pick new teams from the pool of available players to represent the yellow & blue of Gunners or the claret-red of Wanderers.

This shuffling of the pack prohibits one team from going on a dominating spell over a period of time. The system adds spice to the competition and has ensured titles being decided on the last day of the season and even on goal difference.

The league fixtures take place on every Sunday morning during the winter i.e. from mid-November until the end of March. All the matches are played on the Garrison football field in St. Mary’s.

Occasionally, Newlyn Non Athletico, a team at level 13-14 of the English football league system, plays against a combined Isles team. Also a team from Truro visits annually to play against a combined team.

The origin of the league structure can be traced back to the 1920s when a team from each of the five islands used to play in the Lyonnesse Inter-Island Cup. By the 1980′s, only two teams survived – The Rovers and the Rangers. In 1984, they were renamed as the Woolpack Wanderers and the the Garrison Gunners respectively.

The future does not hold much promise for the league. As the Isles do not have any center for higher education, youngsters around the age of 16 migrate to the British mainland for higher education and job opportunities.

And return (if they return) after quite a few years. This has meant that the average age of the two teams is mid or high 30s. And there is a possibility that when the current crop of players finally decide to hang their boots, the very existence of the league might come under question.