Lancashire County Football Association

The Lancashire County FA was formed on 28 September 1878 at a meeting held one Saturday afternoon in the parlour of The Volunteer Inn, Bromley Cross.[2] [3]

The LFA runs a number of different cup competitions catering for the various levels of football played throughout the county, which is based on the historic county boundaries of Lancashire, before the 1974 county boundary re-organisation, rather than the current administrative county boundaries and so includes Barrow-in-Furness to the north and Manchester, Rochdale, Oldham and Liverpool to the south. Warrington, historically part of Lancashire, is not administered by the Lancashire FA and is instead covered by the Cheshire FA. The administrative area covered by the Lancashire County FA overlaps with areas covered by Manchester FA and Liverpool FA. According to the Memorandum on Areas and Overlapping of Associations the Manchester FA covers the area 12 miles from Manchester Town Hall and is confined to Lancashire. The Liverpool FA covers 18 miles in Lancashire and 8 miles in Cheshire from Liverpool Town Hall. In addition in an agreement with the Cumberland FA the Lancashire FA received eight clubs in the South Cumberland area of Millom from the end of season 1969/70.[4]

The county is divided into nine areas with each area having one member on the LFA Council.[5] The divisions are as follows:

Division 1: Burnley – Pendle – Rossendale
Division 2: Blackburn with Darwen – Hyndburn – Ribble Valley
Division 3: Bolton
Division 4: Bury – Rochdale
Division 5: Chorley – Liverpool – West Lancashire
Division 6: Preston – South Ribble – Blackpool – Fylde
Division 7: Oldham – Manchester
Division 8: Barrow – Lancaster – Wyre
Division 9: St Helens – Wigan – Warrington

The Lancashire FA governs 100 leagues, 4,000 teams and 1,500 referees.[1]

In the 2005–06 season the Lancashire County FA Schools team won the English Schools' Football Association Under-16 Inter County Trophy. In the semi-final held at Victoria Park, Burscough, Lancashire beat Leicestershire & Rutland County Schools FA 3–1.[6] They then beat Devon County Schools FA 2–1 in the final which was held at Ewood Park in Blackburn on 11 May 2006.[7][8]

The Lancashire FA are based at the County Ground, Thurston Road in Leyland. They moved their headquarters to the County Ground in 1998 from Blackburn.[9]

The County Ground is the current home of Bolton Wanderers reserve team, who play in the Premier Reserve League and who, in the 2009–10 season, play in the North Division.[10] The club also use the ground for all their home matches in the Manchester Senior Cup. The county representative team and county youth team also use the ground for home matches, and up until the 2009–2010 season County Cup finals were played at the County Ground. The ground has a 500-seater covered stand.

Facilities include an all-weather pitch as well as six corporate rooms, the largest of which, the Tom Finney Suite, can seat up to 100.[11]

A number of leagues that were affiliated to the Lancashire FA have disbanded or amalgamated with other leagues including:

• Lancashire Combination
• Bolton & District Amateur Combination
• Bolton Boys and Girls Federation
• Fylde District League
• Lancashire Palatine League
• Lancaster and Morecambe Grassroots Sunday League
• Leigh & District Amateur League
• Morecambe & Lancaster Sunday Football League
• Preston Churches League
• Blackburn & Darwen Junior League
• Hindley & District Junior League
• Hyndburn & District Boys League

The Lancashire FA currently organises nineteen County Cup competitions.[13]

• Official website