The I Zingari League was an amateur association football competition based in Liverpool, England which existed from 1895. [1]
Its name means 'the gypsies' in dialecticised Italian, and I Zingari was the name of an English amateur cricket club formed in 1845, and an Australian one formed 40 years later. The Liverpool football league’s name invokes their spirit of amateur competition.
The league ran until 2006, when it merged with the Liverpool County Combination to form the new Liverpool County Premier League. It was at one time a feeder to the North West Counties League.
Geographically, the League's member clubs spanned an area administered by the Liverpool County Football Association, Cheshire Football Association and Lancashire County Football Association and players from the League's clubs have played in the representative teams of all three associations. Two players gained a cap for the England national amateur football team whilst playing for clubs in the I Zingari League, J B Healey (Old Xaverians) in 1908 and A E Millington (Liverpool Police) in 1930, [2] despite the longstanding bias of the selection process in favour of players from clubs in London and the South East.
Notable local non-league clubs Marine and Formby competed in this league in the past. A representative fixture against the Lancashire Amateur League was played annually between 1919 and the league's discontinuation.
The final season's Premier Division featured 14 teams. The final champions were Old Xaverians.
Alsop OB |
BRNESC |
Collegiate OB |
East Villa |
Hill Athletic |
Liverpool NALGO |
Mackets |
NELTC |
Old Xaverians |
Quarry Bank OB |
Red Rum |
Roma |
Turpins Devonshire |
Warbreck |
The I Zingari Combination was founded in 1904 to serve as a competition primarily for the reserve sides of I Zingari League clubs. [3] Despite the discontinuation of the League, the Combination continues to run, hosting 39 teams across a single open-age and three veterans' divisions. Whilst no formal arrangement exists, the open-age competition frequently serves as a provider of clubs to the Liverpool County Premier League. [4] It can therefore be said to occupy a position at level 14 of the English football league system.
Association football is the most popular sport in England, where the first modern set of rules for the code were established in 1863, which were a major influence on the development of the modern Laws of the Game. With over 40,000 association football clubs, England has more clubs involved in the code than any other country. England hosts the world's first club, Sheffield F.C.; the world's oldest professional association football club, Notts County; the oldest national governing body, the Football Association; the joint-oldest national team; the oldest national knockout competition, the FA Cup; and the oldest national league, the English Football League. Today England's top domestic league, the Premier League, is one of the most popular and richest sports leagues in the world, with six of the ten richest football clubs in the world as of 2019.
Marine Association Football Club is an English football club based in Crosby, Merseyside. The club, which was founded in 1894, is a member of both the Liverpool County and Lancashire County Football Associations, and currently plays in the Northern Premier League Division One West.
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Formby Football Club are an English football club based in Formby, Merseyside. They will play in the Liverpool County Premier League Division One for the 2022–23 season, having last played in the North West Counties Football League Premier Division in 2013–14. They are members of the Liverpool County Football Association.
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The Liverpool County Premier League is a football competition based in Merseyside, England. It was founded in 2006 as a merger of the Liverpool County Football Combination and the I Zingari League.
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