BBC Sport's Patrick Gearey takes a look at one of the lesser-known international football fixtures.

The Principality of Sealand lies just off the eastern coast of England and has been "independent" since 1967 when Major Paddy Roy Bates founded his nation on a former World War Two fort. The United Kingdom does not recognise it but Sealand has carried on regardless and now has started its own international football team.

While the Sealand FA was founded in 2004, only now is it playing official internationals. Official in the sense that the team's game with the Chagos Islands has been sanctioned by the Nouvelle Federation. That acts as a governing body for territories not currently in Fifa.

Their first international match is held at Godalming Town FC in front of a lively, enthusiastic crowd. It features a speech from a monarch, an anthem no one knows the words to, and some defending leakier than the fort's rusty deck.

There may never be another international like it.