How have Gibraltar won twice as many competitive internationals as Germany in 2018?

All teams claim they have a togetherness but few can match Gibraltar’s sense of unity. “We were all born in the same hospital,” says their defender, Jack Sergeant. “There is only one.”

The pretty, tree-lined surrounds of West Didsbury and Chorlton in the North West Counties League is not the sort of place where you would expect to find an international footballer. West Didsbury have two, Sergeant and Jamie Coombes, who last month played in Gibraltar’s two Nations League victories – the first competitive wins in their history.

I am not the first journalist to seek out West Didsbury. Sergeant’s last interview was with Germany’s leading news magazine. Der Spiegel had asked Jack how Gibraltar had managed to win twice as many internationals this year as Joachim Löw’s dethroned world champions.

Sergeant, who like everyone else in this Gibraltar side was born in the shadow of the rock, is studying fire management at Blackburn College.

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When Gibraltar first began to play international football, Sergeant, stationed in the heart of their defence, had to do an awful lot of firefighting. In attempting to make their first major tournament, Euro 2016, they conceded 56 goals, the worst performance by any team over a 10-game qualification campaign.

Things, however, were changing. In March 2016, at Hampden Park against Scotland, came their first competitive goal, scored by Lee Casciaro, a policeman who had a thing about scoring against Scottish teams. Four months later, in a Champions League qualifier, Casciaro, playing for Lincoln Red Imps, would score the only goal of the game in what would prove a humiliating first match for Brendan Rodgers as Celtic manager.

Nations League success

On Friday night they play host to Armenia in Group D4, but last month they made the long journey to Yerevan to play an Armenia side led by Henrikh Mkhitaryan. Things did not start well. Instead of God Save the Queen, they played the national anthem of Liechtenstein before kick-off.

However, when the final whistle sounded, Gibraltar had won their first competitive international, 1-0. It was not a straightforward victory – Armenia aimed 35 shots at Gibraltar’s keeper, Kyle Goldwin – but the sense of history was overwhelming.

“It was a very emotional dressing room afterwards,” says Sergeant. “For all Armenia’s pressure, we kept Mkhitaryan pretty quiet and, when the final whistle went, we went over to our fans. We counted 10 of them.”

There were many more the following week at Gibraltar’s Victoria Ground. When Gibraltar first started playing international football, their home games were staged in Faro on the Algarve. They have since moved to the Vic, which gives them a substantial advantage. It is Gibraltar’s only football ground, home to all 10 of their clubs. They know every inch of it.

Once more they played Lichtenstein’s national anthem, but for the very good reason that it was Liechtenstein they were playing. Gibraltar won, 2-1, and by the end people were in tears.

‘Everbody wants to draw England’

Gibraltar has a population of 34,000 – slightly more than Morecambe and slightly less than Accrington. It is swollen by 10,000 Spaniards who cross the border at La Linea every day to work.

“We all speak Spanish,” says Sergeant, who spent a season with Sevilla’s youth team. “The thing is that nobody knows what’s going to happen after Brexit, but the draw for the Euros is in December and everybody in Gibraltar wants to draw England.”

Gibraltar voted 96 per cent to remain in the European Union but for political reasons they are barred from being drawn in the same group as Spain. It is not just Spain’s claim to Gibraltar but Madrid’s fear that Gibraltar having its own football team will encourage teams from the Basque Country and Catalonia to break away.

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Coombes, an attacking midfielder for both Gibraltar and West Didsbury and a student at Manchester Metropolitan University, said: “What makes us different is that everybody in Gib knows you. You will walk down the street and you will always be stopped. People will always want to talk about the football. Everyone knows everyone. We are so small.

“When we were trying to qualify for the Euros, we played Germany in Nuremberg. They had just won the World Cup and the build-up was astonishing.

“Everything about them seemed huge and intimidating until you kicked off, when you thought to yourself: ‘This is just a football match’.

“The pressure was far worse when we played Liechtenstein because we all knew this was a game we could actually win.”