{"id":568067,"date":"2026-03-29T06:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T06:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/568067\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T06:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T06:03:11","slug":"island-pride-jersey-guernsey-and-isle-of-man-aiming-high-despite-challenges-soccer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/568067\/","title":{"rendered":"Island pride: Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man aiming high despite challenges | Soccer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clad top-to-toe in Jersey<\/a> Bulls paraphernalia, Andy Lane takes a brief step away from drum-banging duties on the Springfield Stadium touchline and rolls up a sleeve to reveal the tattooed badge of a football team in only their seventh year of competition. The bull rearing up Lane\u2019s right forearm matches that on his wife Jojo\u2019s left calf, encapsulating the impact the club has made on the local community. \u201cIt\u2019s about pride,\u201d Lane says.<\/p>\n

Bulls\u2019 latest visitors are Hassocks, a club hailing from a village just north of Brighton. Like every other team in the eighth-tier Isthmian League South East Division, this away day was the first they sought out when the fixture list was unveiled last summer, and more than 50 supporters have flown over for the occasion. \u201cIt\u2019s a great novelty fixture,\u201d says the Hassocks chair, Patrick Harding.<\/p>\n

The lower down the football pyramid you go, the more regionalised leagues tend to become. In a volunteer-led landscape, where players are either partly remunerated or entirely unpaid, it is impractical to expect teams to regularly traverse the country, which is what makes the football clubs of Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man<\/a> so unusual. Despite the inconvenience of up to 200 miles and vast bodies of water separating them from opponents, all three clubs compete in English non-league football; pseudo-national teams effectively representing their crown dependencies against part-timers on a weekly basis, before retiring to the clubhouse for pie and chips.<\/p>\n

It was Guernsey<\/a> who led the way in 2011, seeking an opportunity for their players at a higher level than their small community could provide. Granted approval to join the 10th-tier Combined Counties League \u2013 which ordinarily features clubs beyond the western reaches of London \u2013 they paved a path that their fellow islanders followed over the next decade.<\/p>\n

Lorne Bickley of Jersey Bulls signs autographs at Springfield Stadium. Photograph: David Ferguson\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

All three clubs shoulder the entire bill for home games. Up to 25 members of the opposition\u2019s playing and coaching staff are flown in from the English mainland, transported while on the island, put up in a hotel for the night and flown home the following day. The same applies to match officials.<\/p>\n

The outlay for merely getting everyone to a home game usually lands somewhere in the region of \u00a37,000, while travel to away fixtures results in similar costs. Flight delays can wreak havoc on kick-off times that are already adjusted throughout the year based on seasonal airline schedules. Away travel is equally hazardous, with weather-affected fixtures often called off only after an island team has already landed on the mainland.<\/p>\n

The clubs primarily achieve their annual running costs of about \u00a3400,000 through gate receipts and commercial activity, saving money on wages. They all operate as outlier amateur teams at their respective levels \u2013 Bulls in the eighth tier, Guernsey and Isle of Man in the ninth \u2013 with players receiving no more than expenses at best.<\/p>\n

Before seeing off Hassocks with a hat-trick, Bulls winger Rai Dos Santos spent the morning working as a football coach for local children. Despite their unpaid status, Bulls and Guernsey are firmly in the mix for promotion. \u201cA lot of our lads, when they were youngsters, missed out on being at professional academies because they lived on the island,\u201d says the Bulls chair, Ian Horswell.<\/p>\n

Andy Lane of the Jersey Bulls Independent Supporters Club gets behind the team. Photograph: David Ferguson\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The isolation is a double-edged sword. \u201cWe always say our biggest defence is the water around us,\u201d says Guernsey director Nic Legg. \u201cWhere else are our players going to go other than a much higher level? But, at the same time, it\u2019s the biggest restriction. We had some games last season when we travelled with 13 players and people would ask why. Well, that\u2019s all we had. We can\u2019t bring anyone else in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weekend fixtures tend to promote better availability, although Bulls had to make do without 11 players for a match earlier this season after 10 of them attended a teammate\u2019s wedding on the same day. Midweek away games can be fraught with absences due to work commitments.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can end up being very good at home on a Tuesday and Saturday, slightly weaker away on a Saturday, and away on a Tuesday you\u2019re struggling to put a competitive side out,\u201d says Isle of Man director Lawrence Looney. \u201cYou\u2019re never going to win the league like that because you have to effectively forfeit so many points.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only way to solve that dilemma is to pay players \u2013 an ambition that all three island teams harbour over a variety of timeframes. Horswell has even grander plans for Bulls, suggesting \u201cthe dream is to become a fully professional side\u201d, pointing to top-tier Portuguese club Santa Clara, who hail from the Azores, as inspiration. \u201cWe never want to lose our island identity, though, and have local people told they aren\u2019t good enough,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The Jersey Bulls Mascot, Beany the Bull, gets their crowd going at Springfield Stadium. Photograph: David Ferguson\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The pathway is working. Sol Solomon scored 60 goals in two seasons for Bulls before he worked his way up to Tranmere in League Two. Bournemouth midfielder Alex Scott began his playing career with Guernsey in the English eighth tier. \u201cWhen you play for Guernsey you play for your island and you are representing 65,000 people,\u201d said Scott a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n

That island pride is evident in attendances. Bulls\u2019 matchday average of almost 900 this season more than doubles almost every other team in their division. Guernsey and Isle of Man crowds also dwarf most opposition clubs. Although official island representative teams exist for select few competitions, the club trio effectively serve the same purpose on a weekly basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we started in 2011, people believed they were watching Guernsey play as an island,\u201d says Legg. \u201cWe played on that island pride. Particularly the older fans, they are really proud to be watching their island play in a UK league.\u201d<\/p>\n

While 50 or so youngsters flock to the tunnel for match-winner Dos Santos\u2019s autograph at the final whistle, Lane and his fellow Bulls diehards take down the two dozen flags they have strung up next to the dugout. A step closer to promotion and another triumph for island football.<\/p>\n

Saturday is Non-League Day. For more information visit here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Clad top-to-toe in Jersey Bulls paraphernalia, Andy Lane takes a brief step away from drum-banging duties on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-568067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}