A tiny village from County Armagh in Northern Ireland has just beat the odds to become the smallest settlement to have a top-tier football team. The remarkable Loughgall Football Club won promotion to the NIFL Premiership despite the fact they hail from a place with a population of just 282.The population of Loughgall is 38 fewer than Streymnes (320) — the home of the Faroe Islands Premier League club EB/Streymur. You can scan Europe up and down, but you’ll never find a smaller place where you can watch top-tier football.The smallest settlement in Europe with a top flight team. 💙 Loughgall Village 💙 pic.twitter.com/ONXggCcXYw— Loughgall FC (@LoughgallFC) April 22, 2023 Their manager and former player Dean Smith (no, not the one in charge of Leicester City) believes it is “the biggest achievement” in the club’s history and even said there is a running joke in the village that his squad, “make up 10% of the population when we train on Tuesdays and Thursdays!”Smith is proud of his team’s second division win, but he assures it’s not an accident. The 46-year-old coach praises his club’s vision of ensuring top training conditions for the team. Whether the village or city you come from is small or large – you will have a chance to compete if you take football seriously.”I’ve been at the club for six-and-half years now, and every year we have been taking baby steps forward, which will get us where we want to be. The club has bought into what we are doing as a coaching staff, but the facilities the club has now are great. We have our gym, a cryo-spa on site, a 3G pitch and obviously a grass pitch as well, so you know, the structures are in place to go up. We have done a lot of improvements to the ground and they will continue do that over the close season again as we don’t want to stand still.”Champions 🏆 pic.twitter.com/d7VtbodlzK— Loughgall FC (@LoughgallFC) April 15, 2023 Istanbul and its 16 million inhabitants will be the largest city represented in European first divisions in the 2023/24 season – and Loughgall is a bit smaller.
