Hundreds of his signature stick figures can be seen gathered at a match on a washed-out looking pitch between terraced houses and factories with billowing chimneys. The painting has been described as 'a modern masterpiece'.
The Football Match had been estimated too high at £3.5 million to £4.5 million.
The existing record for Lowry was £3.8 million, set at the market peak in 2007.
However, three bidders ran the price up until it sold to an anonymous private European buyer for £5.6 million.
The price, significantly, was greater than those for any Henry Moore sculpture or Damien Hirst painting at auction.
One auction house has sold 125 of his works since June 2006, together totalling £29.4 million.
The highest price for a Lowry football painting was £1.9 million when Going To The Match was sold in in 1999.
Like the work to be sold on May 26, the canvas was 28 x 36 inches.
'The Football Match by L.S. Lowry is the ultimate work for passionate connoisseurs of Lowry's work and of football.'
Rachel Hidderley, international specialist in 20th century British art, added: 'The large format, panoramic, bird's-eye composite view
of Lowry's own landscape perfectly captures the spirit and drama of a town
gripped by the excitement of the Saturday football match.
Arctic foxes
at readiness
badgers
bengal tiger
bufallo big five
leopards, big five
rhino, big five
big cats
biscuits
books
teddy doesn't need a ticket
cattle
cheetah cameo
cheetah sketch
elephant pencil
Falklands
Germiston
giants at rest
giraffes
guildford sheds
heroes
high and mighty
how to market your art
ladybird?
Jaguars page
farming
lazy hazy days
lowland gorillas
lunch break
mice
old Ben's
over the forth
portrait of a tiger
portrait-painting, drawings
world wildlife
shibam
Dhala road
rhino beware
scavengers
sentinel
signed prints
summertime,horses
Tahili fort
tigers
lone wanderers
waterhole trilogy
Zambezi sawmill
Arrest
artwiseinvestmentsforbritishartcreations
bank failure
Britain at Play
church street
clogger's shop
collotype
contraption sketch
frames
francis terrace
going to the match
going to work
hill side
how to store art drawings
level crossing Burton
levl crossing with train
outside the mill 1930
northern town
four girls
four unknown paintings
girl in a red dress
harrogate
lodging house
Newcastle going home fromm school
outside a mill
garden party
original, polling station
post office
regent street, Lytham
original, terrace, peel park
trawler off Sunderland
view from a widow, Broughton
painting comes to life
the park
pavilion
man taken ill
pencil sketch found
seaside promenade
crime lake
pond
contraption
st. Luke's
stockport photo
studio 2
tall man
view of a town
military-gunraid
Berwick, original
cripples
Staugustineschurch, drawing, 2
st. simons church oil
ststephenschurch, Salford
delta roll