Isles of Scilly Football League

In the 1920s, the Lyonnesse Inter-Island Cup, a competition between the islands of St. Mary's, Tresco, St. Martins, Bryher and St. Agnes, was formed. By the 1950s, only two clubs remained—the Rangers and the Rovers. In 1984 the two clubs changed their names to the Garrison Gunners and the Woolpack Wanderers, which are their current names.[1][2]

The League is attempting to get into the Guinness World Records for the smallest league in the world.[1]

In April 2008, Adidas ran an advertisement called "Dream Big", highlighting the league, featuring several well-known football personnel including David Beckham, Steven Gerrard and Patrick Vieira.[5]

In 2019 the football league tested Fan Assisted Refereeing (FAR) in association with Vodafone.[6]

Game in progress between the two teams—the Garrison Gunners in yellow, and the Woolpack Wanderers in red.

The League competition involves the Woolpack Wanderers and the Garrison Gunners playing each other eighteen times, often on a Sunday. There also exist two Cups: The Wholesalers Cup and the Foredeck Cup, which is played over two legs. An "Old Men versus the Youngsters" match is played on Boxing Day. The season itself starts with the Charity Shield.[1] All the matches are played on the Garrison football field, on the island of St. Mary's.[7]

Team line-ups change at the start of each season, with captains of each team picking their players one at a time before the first game.[8]

The league is played during the winter, from mid-November until the end of March.[1][9]

Occasionally, a combined Isles of Scilly team play Newlyn Non Athletico, a team at level 14 of the English football league system. A team from Truro visits annually to play against a combined team.[7]

Garrison Field, where all official games are held

The Isles of Scilly are struggling to hold on to their young people. There is no sixth form on the Isles so when youngsters turn 16, they go to the mainland. In addition, house prices are expensive, so they tend not to return until much older. As a result, the number of players in the league had been dwindling. In 2008 Howard Cole, a secretary who referees the games, estimated the average age of both teams to be within the mid- to late-30s.[7] As of 2023, one player in his 70s still occasionally plays in official games.[12]

Due to the league's nature on-duty firemen or policemen play in official games, occasionally leaving one team one-player short in case of an emergency.[13]