Joseph Chipolina had some unlikely supporters when he scored the winning goal for Gibraltar against Liechtenstein last month.

"I'm a prison officer and when I went back to work after the match all the inmates were congratulating me as most of them watched the match. Apparently they all started banging on their cell doors when I scored.”

Chipolina laughs as he tells his story, but there is a serious message underpinning it: that, in Gibraltar, the community is so tight-knit that even convicted felons have a stake in their national team's success. As Joseph's cousin and Gibraltar's captain, Roy Chipolina, puts it: "It would only happen in Gib".

Happily, there is currently plenty for the Rock's band of football brethren to celebrate. After being formally recognised by Uefa in 2013, Gibraltar – whose population of 32,000 would just about fill Brighton's Amex Stadium – won just one of their first 29 matches. This year, they have three victories in five games, including back-to-back successes in the Nations League, and are within touching distance of one of the unlikeliest success stories in international football history.

They take on Armenia at the Victoria Stadium on Friday, having beaten them 1-0 away last month, thanks to another goal by Joseph. Victory then and against Macedonia three days later would give them the chance of topping their group and earning a shot at promotion to the C League. Their world ranking has rocketed from 206 to the relatively dizzy heights of 190 in the space of a year: Bangladesh, whose population of 164.7 million is over 5,000 times the size of the Rock's, are 194th.