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The Midland Football Alliance was an English association football league for semi-professional teams. It covered Leicestershire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands, Worcestershire and also southern parts of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. The league consisted of a single division which sat at Step 5 of the National League System, or the ninth level of the overall English football league system. The league was formed in 1994, drawing its initial membership from the strongest clubs in the Midland Football Combination and the West Midlands (Regional) League, both of which became feeder leagues to the new competition. Each season, the champion club of each feeder league was eligible for promotion to the Alliance, and Alliance clubs could in turn be relegated to the feeder leagues. Successful teams in the Alliance were eligible for promotion to a Step 4 league, either the Southern League or Northern Premier League depending on geographical considerations. The league merged with the Midland Combination in 2014 to form the new Midland Football League. ==History== The Alliance was formed in 1994, taking its initial member clubs from the West Midlands (Regional) League and the Midland Football Combination, which had existed since before the Second World War, having originally been formed as the Birmingham & District League and the Worcestershire Combination respectively.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=History )〕 Their catchment areas had gradually converged, and by the early 1990s the standard of play and geographical coverage of the two competitions were considered to be similar enough that a new competition was formed to cater for the best clubs previously split across the two leagues. The league drew ten member clubs from each of the two leagues for its inaugural season. The clubs selected to join from the Midland Combination were Barwell, Boldmere St Michaels, Bolehall Swifts, Pershore Town, Sandwell Borough, Shepshed Dynamo, Shifnal Town, Stapenhill, Stratford Town and West Midlands Police.〔 Those selected from the West Midlands (Regional) League were Brierley Hill Town, Chasetown, Halesowen Harriers, Hinckley Athletic, Knypersley Victoria, Oldbury United, Paget Rangers, Rocester, Rushall Olympic and Willenhall Town.〔 Paget Rangers won the first league championship by a margin of 12 points from Hinckley Athletic in the 1994–95 season, and gained promotion to the Southern League.〔 The Alliance's status as a feeder to the Southern League was cemented when Armitage 90 were relegated in the opposite direction.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Paget Rangers )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Armitage '90 )〕 Armitage went on to dominate the league in the 1995–96 season but disbanded midway through the season, with the result that their record was expunged from the table.〔 For the 1999–2000 season the league increased in size to 22 clubs when two clubs were promoted into the Alliance but none relegated out of it. One of the promoted clubs was Oadby Town of the Leicestershire Senior League, the first time a team from that league had been promoted into the Alliance.〔 Two years later, the league increased in size to 23 clubs as more teams joined than left,〔 but Stapenhill resigned midway through the 2001–02 season, reverting the number of clubs in the competition back to 22.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Stapenhill )〕 The league expanded to 24 clubs for the 2003–04 season, at the end of which, for the first time, Alliance clubs were promoted to the Northern Premier League, rather than the Southern League, when Rocester and Willenhall Town joined the more northerly of the two leagues.〔 The following season Coalville Town became the first Alliance team to reach the first round proper of the FA Cup, a feat which was repeated in the 2005–06 season by both Chasetown and Leamington.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Coalville )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Chasetown )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Leamington )〕 With the creation of the National League System by the Football Association the league was officially defined as a Step 5 league. The champions of the Midland Combination, West Midlands (Regional) League and Leicestershire Senior League continued to gain promotion to the Alliance, although in 2008 the new East Midlands Counties Football League was formed at the Step 6 level and it was anticipated that successful teams from the Leicestershire Senior League, which is officially a Step 7 league, would now move up to the new league and that the champions of the new league would in turn move up to the Alliance if they fell within its coverage area. In 2014 the Alliance merged with the Midland Combination to form the new Midland Football League. The clubs which had been members of the Alliance formed the Premier Division of the new league. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Midland Football Alliance」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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