Iris Club lillois

The football section quickly made a name for itself by winning the USFSA Northern Regional Championships, which at the time had 5 teams (Tourcoing, Calais, Roubaix, Saint-Omer, and Lille).

[1] This gave ICL the honor of playing in the semifinal of the 1899 French championship, which was the first edition to be open to clubs beyond the Paris region.

However, due to a grotesque organizational problem, including no ball at kickoff, the match only lasted 45 minutes because of the hockey players who were playing right after them.

[1][3] The game was thus postponed for 25 March, now in Amiens, but ICL did not come because a flu epidemic of influenza struck the players, so Le Havre reached the final by default.

[7] Throughout the Bois de la Deûle area, near the racecourse, the main training and playing rugby fields are grouped in the territory of Lille or that of Lambersart.

In 1929, the club made its first appearance in the first division of the Championnat Nord for the first time after World War I, but after three seasons in the mid-table, Ligue 1 was founded.

Initially, on 25 May 1941, the Iris Club merged with Olympique Lille, which had stopped playing football for two years due to the outbreak of the War.