Real de Banjul

Banjul sits on a narrow strip of Gambia's Atlantic coast, and its home football club traces back to a group of school leavers who came back from a trip across the border into Senegal during the 1966/67 season and decided to form a team of their own. They called it Benson and Hedges FC, then Real de Bathurst, before settling in 1970 on the name it has carried since: Real de Banjul.

No club in the country has won more. Real de Banjul have taken the First Division title 15 times, most recently in 2025. Those league titles sit alongside 3 Gambian Cups and 4 Super Cups. Known locally as the City Boys, they play in red and white, a diagonal stripe cutting across both the home and away kit, and their ground, the Banjul Mini Stadium — still called King George V Stadium by many in the city — holds 3,000.

The 1970s brought a harder spell: players left, and the death of Joof Fye weighed on the squad. Out of that came the 1974/75 side, built largely around young players, who went through the season unbeaten to win the league and then became the first Gambian club to enter the African Cup of Champions. A first relegation followed in 1978/79, but Real de Banjul were back in the top flight the following season. Midfielder Saihou Sarr, who later coached the Gambia national team, is remembered at the club as the player who set the pattern the side has followed since.

Their fiercest rival through the 1980s was Wallidan FC, the club Real de Banjul finished behind as runners-up more often than any other side during those years.