“I asked John.” “I like Stuart.” “I choose Max.” These expressions, involving balls, could be associated with the playground of any school in London, Manchester or Birmingham. In fact, you could also change the name to Madrid, Barcelona or Seville. However, this ritual is celebrated once a year on the Isles of Scilly, south of England, and serves to form the teams of the world’s smallest league.

Only two teams take part in this competition: Woolpack Wanderers and Garrison Gunners, who play each other 20 times for the league championship, in addition to playing a Super Cup, two cups, one of which is round trip, a match between adults and youth and even a pre-season friendly. The match always takes place on the same field, on the island of St. Mary’s, off the coast of Cornwall, and the players on each team change every season.

“To select the players for each team,” tournament organizer Anthony Gibbson, known as ‘Gibbo’, explained to EFE, “the two captains sit together, usually in a pub with a beer, and have a list of players and what position each one plays. play? They toss a coin in the air and take turns seeing which player to pick.”

“It’s like the schoolyard, plus the captain is in charge of cleaning the equipment and managing the games,” added William Lethbridge, who has played in the league for seven years.

What the captains are looking for is that over the long season – from October to March – there is equality and the league is not decided too quickly.

It hasn’t always been easy and in fact the Woolpack Wanderers have won the last three titles, but the gap is not necessarily due to each other’s qualities, but rather to the peculiar circumstances of life.

And in the Isles of Scilly league there are no contracts, no ties to clubs, no salaries. Therefore, when a team’s forward is called to work in another country or abroad, he has to go. There is an even stranger situation where a player, whose job is a policeman or nurse, has to leave in the middle of the game due to an emergency.

Once, there was a farmer who was called because his cow had run away and was blocking the road.

“Fortunately the cow incident didn’t happen again,” joked Gibbson, who also acknowledged the difficulty of holding this competition, not only because of the setbacks made by workers from the city, but also because of the increasing number of workers in the city. rare population in St. Mary’s.

The island of about 2,000 people is gradually losing population – 7% since 2011 -, especially its youngest.

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“We have some 15-year-olds and the oldest who are playing are around 40. Usually they stop playing at 50. There is always the fear that there won’t be enough players for next season, but for now we have them.” and I hope that we have many more seasons ahead,” added Gibbo.

To break the monotony of playing the same team twenty times, at the start of the season the Lyonesse Trophy was held, where Woolpack and Garrison teamed up against an amateur team called Dynamo Coughs, and who were known to have the biggest trophy. in this world.

This small cup, less than a centimeter high, is placed on a wooden base and was born at the beginning of the century thanks to one of the players working in the field of metallurgy. FIFA, after learning of the story, became interested in the object and added it to its museum in Zurich.

This is not the first time the world’s eyes have been focused on a league recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the smallest and in 2007 Adidas brought in David Beckham, Michael Ballack, Patrick Vieira, Steven Gerrard, Anderson and Daniele de Rossi for filming. an advertisement.

“I remember it very well, it was my second year on the island and I hadn’t been as involved in the league as I am now. I played the last match, against De Rossi and it was an unreal experience. “It’s not every day you play with a world champion,” recalled Gibbo.

However, Gibbo’s best memory in the ad occurred when the press received information that Beckham was on the island, so the British media mobilized their resources with helicopters to hunt down the Real Madrid player at that time. This caused ‘Becks’ to storm out and leave the production team with several shots to shoot, but no stars.

“It was crazy, I became David Beckham’s replacement in one day. I don’t look much like it, but it’s good if the picture is taken from a helicopter (laughs). That was my greatest moment of fame,” he recalled.

Additionally, Vodafone used this championship in 2019 to test FAR technology, not VAR, where the fans themselves decide whether the referee’s decision was correct.

The league season starts on October 22 and will run until March 24 and currently everything is aimed at Woolpack Wanderers winning a fourth title in a row, after three wins in a row.

Nevertheless, rivalry is not one of the main reasons why the league mobilizes every year to meet in pubs to decide, as if they were schoolchildren, who gets the best player on the island.

“We are all good friends. I don’t think there is much competition, although when you play, what you want is to win. “After the game there’s always a handshake and a beer in the pub watching the Premier League,” said Lethbridge.

“At the end of the season there is a meal and a trophy ceremony, with awards for player of the season, the Golden Boot and so on. The players on each team have to drink a glass of beer as quickly as possible and there are other games too, which I won’t go into too much detail about (laughs).”

With information from EFE.

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