I Zingari League

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.

  1. ^ 'Non-League Football Review 1986' by Bob Barton.
  2. ^ Brian McColl, Douglas Gorman, George Campbell, 'Forgotten Glories', Scottish Historical Archive, 2015, ISBN 978-1-326-35601-9