Beating Gibraltar is not for everyone…

International Island Games – June 30, 2009

Gibraltar 1
Ynys Môn 3 (Mel McGinness, Marc Evans 2, 1 pen)

Fifteen years ago this month Ynys Môn’s football team achieved one of their greatest-ever results at the International Island Games.

Competing at Aland, Anglesey produced three late goals to beat tournament favourites Gibraltar 3-1.

Tonight, fifteen years on, Gibraltar ended a 13-match losing run in which they had scored no goals and conceded 50, by holding the Wales national side 0-0 at the Estádio Algarve in Portugal.

It is one of the most embarrassing results in Wales’ history, and considering Gibraltar are ranked 203rd in the world, they probably haven’t progressed that much since losing to Ynys Môn on June 30, 1999.

Island Games favourites Gibraltar were that day expected to make light work of Mon, but the Welsh heroes pulled off a superb victory.

Three goals in the last 12 minutes from Mel McGinness and Marc Evans (2, 1 pen) clinched what was probably Anglesey’s best result in the history of the Games.

Both strikers are still weaving their magic, McGinness as player-manager for newly-crowned Tier 4 North Wales Coast West Premier Division side Trearddur Bay, while Evans, who has netted in excess of 400 goals in his career, continues to bang them in for Gwalchmai.

Ynys Môn lost 4-0 to Rhodes in the next stage but still finished a credible sixth in the tournament, having come second in their group.

And 2009 was not the only year that Môn defeated Gibraltar at the Games.

In the 2003 fifth-place match, Anglesey beat the side nicknamed Team 54 Los Llanis 2-0, Gerallt Jones and an own goal securing the result.

And in 1993, a Steve Humphreys goal sealed Môn a 1-0 win over ‘The Rock’.

Gibraltar were granted full Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) membership in May 2013.