Just 24 miles off the southwestern coast of England lies an archipelago called Isles of Scilly (not to be confused with the Italian island of Sicily). The archipelago consists of over 140 tiny islands of which only 5 are inhabited with a combined population of around 2,100 people. Today the Isles of Scilly host the smallest official league in the world with just 2 participating teams.
It all began in the 1920's with an Inter-Island Cup amongst all 5 of the inhabited islands, however by the 1950's only 2 teams survived. Those teams where called Rangers and Rovers, but by 1984 they changed their names to Garrison Gunners and Woolpack Wanderers as they are known to this day.
Together they are part of the Isles of Scilly Football League, which is officially affiliated to the English FA. However, they are not part the English football pyramid and therefore cannot be promoted or relegated into any other division nor participate in the FA Cup.
Interestingly enough both teams are technically part of the same club, St. Mary's FC, and all of the matches are played on the island of St. Mary's. Either way the teams play each other around twenty times for the league, plus two cups, as well as a Community Shield which kicks off the season.
On boxing day they organize a friendly "old men versus youngsters" match, because of the isles small population it is not uncommon for players up to 70 years old to participate in matches. It is also not uncommon for players who are full-time firemen or policemen to abandon their team mid game due to an emergency.
It's also noteworthy that the trophy is of the very appropriate size of 6 millimeters and is nicknamed "the worlds smallest trophy".
This quirky league caught significant attention of the rest of the UK, to the point where in 2008 Adidas did a commercial called "Dream Big" highlighting the 2 team league with the participation of superstars such as Beckham, Viera and Gerrard.
Vodafone also decided to explore the tiny league's appeal by implementing the worlds first Fan Assisted Referee (FAR) to advertise their 5G network. FAR is exactly what it sounds like, fans can vote with their phones on decisions made on the field and the referee can take the fans opinions into consideration. This experiment hasn't been tested in any other league yet.
In 2016 the Isles of Scilly Football League was officially recognized by the Guinness World Records as the smallest affiliated football league in the world.