Calcio: A History of Italian Football

During the war, Italian nationalists attempted to mobilize sport behind the war effort. Soldiers were anxious to read about sport and special sports papers were produced for them to browse through. Soldiers also played football at the front and appeals were made for footballs to be sent out to them. Sports Illustrated produced a war issue that compared the conflict to a vast game ‘in which there are no laws and the spectators are also actors’. With time, this paper became less and less about sport and more and more about war propaganda. Fascism’s use of sport as a potent propaganda weapon in the 1930s was prefigured in this period of international conflict.

Although the official championship had been called off at the start of the war, competitive football continued through a series of cup competitions. All the big teams were involved, although crowds were small, judging by the photos. Players were still being paid, much to the chagrin of the sports press, who complained that ‘nasty professionalism has still not disappeared’. There were even outbreaks of crowd trouble, ‘the usual fights’. In the reports of these games, calcio appears to be far more modern than during the ‘heroic’ phase of its growth. The players have the physical shape of modern footballers, the kit is smaller and less baggy and includes knee bandages, headbands and goalkeeping gloves. Football photographers were also improving. In the early photos, the ball was a rare sight – and papers would use crude photo montages to show ‘goals’. Now they had begun to capture goals, saves, tackles and even fights between players. Another modern development was advertising around the stadium. Football had become a business.

In 1919 the football championship began again in earnest and the sport went through a period of considerable expansion. After the war the foreign dominance on the field began to wane, although foreign players continued to arrive, whilst the technical side of the game began to be controlled by non-Italian coaches and managers. Foreign managers were brought in by most of the big clubs after the war and many enjoyed immediate success. Symbols became important as calcio invented its own history made up of a mix of tradition and myth. From the 1923–24 season onwards, the championship-winning team had a scudetto (shield) symbol – with the colours of the national flag – sewn onto their shirts. The shield-patch remained there for the whole following season, and the word scudetto began to rival that of titolo or campionato.

Running the Game. The Italian Football Federations. Splits and Reunions

We have seen that the first Italian football federation had been formed in 1898 and had organized the first championships, which slowly expanded from the minor one-day tournament of that year. In 1909 the federation changed its name to the FIGC (Federazione Italiana del Giuoco del Calcio) making calcio the official Italian term for football. That year also saw the adoption of a rule book and federal statutes. Referees were also brought under the auspices of a special commission. For the first time, relegation and promotion were introduced.

Almost from the beginning of the history of calcio, the ‘problem’ of foreign players produced heated debate. The early championships saw teams with English, Belgian, Swiss and German players in key positions. Genoa and Inter were often criticized for their preponderance of foreign players. In part, this was simply jealousy, but politics was also important. Italian nationalists argued that the domestic game should be reserved for Italians.

In 1908, the football federation took a radical step – all teams with foreign players would be excluded from the main championship and a special competition would be reserved for them. In protest, a series of big teams pulled out altogether, including Milan, Torino and Genoa. The foreigner ban was seen by the Milanese clubs as a crude attempt to take their power away, on and off the field. Milan were particularly angry as their chance of winning the special Spensley Cup, awarded for three successive championship victories, had been removed by diktat.

Under pressure again, after the farcical failure of the Italian-only championship, the federation re-admitted foreigners the following year, but the issue continued to provoke bitter debate. A gesture was made towards Milan, who were awarded the Spensley Cup without having actually won it. In 1910, Inter’s championship victory was marked by controversy over the role of Aebi, an elegant Swiss-Italian player whose citizenship was called into question. These battles were also over territory (the head offices of the football federation kept shifting from city to city, and in particular between Milan and Turin) and about control over what was becoming big business. The world of calcio was, right from the start, riven by splits, controversies, rivalries and acrimonious debate. It was rare for a championship to go by without insubordination by one club or another and the federation struggled to impose its authority.

Violence and Fans. The early years

Violence was part of calcio from the very beginning. Fights in the crowd were reported during the first ever championship tournament, the one-day affair in Turin in 1898, and violence began to afflict the game almost from the start. Football historian Ghirelli writes of pitch invasions during a match between Genoa and Juventus in 1905, which led to an immediate replay, and of stone-throwing during other early games.16

Between 1911 and 1914, a number of incidents marred games. Stones were hurled at a referee in 1912 in a match between Genovese team Andrea Doria and Inter. In December 1913 another referee was forced to run away from angry supporters in a match at Novara. A photo survives of this incident, depicting a number of men with straw hats milling around on the pitch, and a bemused goalkeeper-onlooker. Casale and Inter fans fought each other on the pitch in June 1914. Some of this violence was linked to actual games, some to local rivalries, and some to gambling, which was already widespread. Pitch invasions became commonplace, such as in a match between two Rome teams in June 1914 and in a Tuscan match in January of the same year, when shots were fired and stones thrown during a Livorno—Pisa derby.

In the brutal atmosphere of post-war Italy, football violence exploded on and off the field. For Ghirelli, there was a series of episodes that ‘veered between farce and the time of the Wild West’.17 Rinaldo Barlassina, one of the most prominent Italian referees at the time, was the victim of stone-throwing during a match at Casale. After refusing to give a penalty, Barlassina used an umbrella to protect himself and he emerged unhurt. Ghirelli comments that ‘it is unclear if this was thanks to his stoicism or to the fact that the stones had run out’.18 Another referee was attacked by angry fans on his way home after a game at Modena.

In February 1920, a pitch invasion interrupted Pro Vercelli-Genoa and Guido Ara, a Vercelli midfielder, was hit by an angry fan. A rare photo survives of this incident, with supporters running towards the referee whilst the players flee. In the background, a number of fans have clambered up trees in order to see the match. In 1921 Pro Vercelli were again involved, this time against Inter, in Milan. In the first half, an Inter player was seriously injured. The home crowd blamed Vercelli’s players. In the second half the atmosphere was ‘electric’ but Vercelli continued their ‘dirty play’, according to press reports. Finally, Vercelli’s captain was sent off. Another injury followed – this time a broken leg – and the players squared up to each other. After a pitch invasion the referee took refuge in the dressing room. The Vercelli player blamed for the incidents was banned for six months and the match was never replayed.

Footballers also became directly involved in the political violence which tormented Italy after the war. Aldo Milano, 24, was the third of four brothers who all played for Pro Vercelli before and after the war. Milano the Third, as he was known, was also a militant fascist. One night, in January 1921, a group of Vercelli fascists decided to visit another nearby town to carry out a mission – the removal of a plaque that was seen as insulting to the war dead. Symbols were important in post-war Italy, and could get you killed. Socialists cried ‘down with the war-mongers’ and attacked those seen as responsible for the conflict, whilst nationalists and fascists flew the Italian flag and exalted the ‘heroes’ from the trenches. That fateful night, Milano the Third was helping the others remove the plaque in question when a local government doorkeeper shot him. Here, as ever, versions differ. Some claim that he was taken to hospital, but nothing could be done; others that his body was left on the street all night.

Aldo Milano had played just over twenty games for Pro Vercelli, who threatened to abandon the championship altogether before deciding to continue. Local fascists were quick to exploit the death of Milano, making him into the latest of a series of ‘fascist martyrs’, and the local fascist branch was immediately renamed in his honour. As on other occasions, the fascists ‘organized commemorations…through which they tried to wipe out the memory of the socialist dead, whose numbers were far greater’.19 This time, the setting for these commemorations was a football pitch.

The most violent calcio-related moment of the whole post-war period was connected to football, but was not really about football. Viareggio’s ‘red days’ of 1920 reflected the spirit of the times. In this dramatic case, football was more of an excuse for, and not the cause of, the violence.

Revolution. Viareggio’s ‘red days’ of 1920

‘Revolution, well before it is a “thing”, is an emotion’ – Avanti! (Socialist Party newspaper) comment on the ‘Viareggio days’, May 1920

Viareggio is a sleepy, elegant seaside town in Tuscany, famed for its long beaches, its February carnival, its liberty architecture and its bagni; institutionalized strips of beach where the rich and the semi-famous can bathe in relative privacy. The town has twice in its history had an impact on the history of calcio. In 1926, the new ‘fascist’ football federation constitution – known as the Viareggio Charter – was drawn up there and in the post-war period a celebrated young players’ tournament was organized (and still takes place) in the town. In 1920, however, at the height of the biennio rosso – Italy’s ‘two red years’ – a football match in Viareggio was enough to spark a kind of local revolution.

The story begins in Lucca, the beautiful walled city just inland of Viareggio, where the local team took the field against Sporting Club Viareggio in April 1920. According to reports, the away fans were greeted with ‘hostility and violence’. They vowed to get their revenge in the return match, planned for May. Worried about possible trouble, the authorities and the club advised all Lucca fans to stay at home. Only a tiny number made the trip to Viareggio. The referee was from Lucca, and he ‘failed to appear impartial’, according to press reports, during the game. As if to balance things up, a war hero called Augusto Morganti, from Viareggio, ran the line. Lucca came back from 2–0 down to draw level towards the end of the game, and this result was ‘blamed’ by the local fans on the referee. With the match drawing to a close, an argument erupted between the linesman and a Lucca player. The referee decided to end the game early, but Morganti was not of the same opinion. Both sets of players took the opportunity to settle some scores, laying into each other. This was the signal for a mass pitch invasion, and an ‘enormous fight’. The few carabinieri (military police) who were present managed to rescue the Lucca players from the hostile crowd, and pushed the Viareggio fans back outside into the street.

News reached the nearby carabinieri barracks, and more men were dispatched to the scene. They arrived to find the crowd attempting to re-enter the stadium, and were greeted with whistles and threats. At this point, the facts are unclear. One policeman, it appears, lost his head (he claimed he was threatened) and shot Morganti – the locally-born linesman – at close range in the neck, killing him immediately. This tragedy enraged the crowd, and the carabinieri were chased away. Meanwhile, Lucca’s players and their fans slipped out of a back door, and left town – they were forced to walk for twenty kilometres to the next station. In Viareggio the crowd turned its attention to more serious matters.

Arms were seized (including at least 100 rifles) and the railway lines blocked. The crowd surrounded the barracks and tried to get hold of the man who had shot the linesman. Barricades went up and telephone and electricity lines were cut. Viareggio was isolated, and in the hands of local subversives. Anarchists from local towns arrived on the scene: it felt and looked like a revolution. Three military columns were soon dispatched to quell the protests, some by sea. With some difficulty, and only after a couple of days, 200 soldiers took control. The taking of the town by local subversives entered into local mythology as Viareggio’s ‘red days’.

Football tried to draw a veil over the events of 1920. In 1921 a ‘Peace Match’ was organized in Viareggio and passed off without incident. However, in the 1921–22 season, violence was again on the agenda. Viareggio won the first derby, but the Lucca fans attributed their defeat to the intimidating atmosphere in the stadium which revived unhappy memories of 1920’s riots. The return match, in the claustrophobic city of Lucca, was extremely tense. Viareggio’s fans were escorted by the police, and after losing 2–0 they proceeded to smash up (according to the version provided by Lucca fans) anything they could find. Here politics, local rivalries (the Tuscan derbies, and in particular Pisa-Livorno, are perhaps the most emotional of all Italian derbies) and the social upheavals of the time, allied to protests against match officials, combined to produce an explosive situation.

Early Games. Ropes, Nets and Fields

What were early games like? Much football writing extrapolates back from contemporary soccer, assuming that matches were similar to those we see today. Yet, apart from some of the rules, the pitch, the numbers of players and the goals, very little of what was called calcio or foot-ball resembled today’s game. The players were not athletes, they rarely trained and they were, at least for the first 20–25 years, nearly all amateurs. It was only in the 1920s that the professional game, and the idea of football as a business – as a full-time occupation – really began to take root. Skill and tactics were rare, play was slow and often violent.

Games took place on impromptu fields, which were not designed specifically for football and were hardly conducive to skilful ball play. Neither was the mud that was far more common than grass in the rainy north of Italy. For some time crowds just gathered around the sidelines, or a simple rope held them back from the pitch itself. For the first ten or so years, football matches failed to attract significant crowd numbers. It was only with the birth of the national team in 1910 that the masses began to turn up to games. Four thousand people – a big crowd – attended the first ever Italian game in Milan in that year. In 1911 Italy’s first football stadium was opened, in the Marassi zone on the edge of Genoa. The stadium had a capacity of 25,000 and was bordered on one side by a large stand with seats. Genoa’s stadium was designed with dressing rooms and even a special room for the referee.

Genoa’s ground was one of the first to give a team ‘home advantage’. Just next door was the more intimate ground used by their city rivals, Andrea Doria (who would later become a part of Sampdoria). Here the crowd was so close to the pitch that a claustrophobic atmosphere was created. This ground was dubbed La Caienna, after a French prison camp. Other stadiums, usually consisting of one stand and some terracing, were constructed by Milan and other clubs before and during World War One while Venezia built a stadium on an island in 1916.

In the years before World War One, fan numbers multiplied. Away fans began to turn up to games, and groups of supporters awaited their team’s return. By the 1920s, the strongest teams had groups of organized followers, and special trains were commissioned for away games. A 1923 photograph shows a group of Genoa away fans on a station platform. They have flags, banners (viva Genoa Club) and have scrawled graffiti on the train itself – including Fan Carriage and the rather poetic and self-deprecatory phrase: Foot-ball, acute mania. These were the first groups of obsessive, faithful fans, the grandfathers (and they are all men, in the photo) of the fanatical ultrà of the 1970s and 1980s.

Were there any tactics? According to some books, early teams tended to line up in a kind of inverted pyramid formation – a sort of 2–3-5 – with emphasis on attack and on kick and rush. It was only with the professional-style training methods of the first and second decades of the twentieth century and the modern coaching of foreign managers that the game began to resemble what we see today on our screens. The various alterations to the offside rules were also important in imposing change, and players did adopt specific positions on the field, right from the beginning (although tactical discipline was slow to take root). The birth and growth of the sports press, sports writers and football correspondents boosted understanding of calcio. Certain clubs began to be associated with specific styles of play, and with particular attitudes to the game, as with the aggressive reputation of Pro Vercelli, or Inter’s association with elegance.

Amateurs and Professionals

Early Italian football, as with the game in England, was strictly an amateur sport, played for honour, fun and physical well-being, but never for money. Payment of any kind was frowned upon. Most players had other jobs – as doctors, artists, businessmen, dockers, students. Amateurism was written into the statutes and rules of clubs and players caught taking money were banned. By the 1920s, this system had become unworkable. Money was beginning to flow into the game – through gate receipts, advertising, newspapers and journalists, and prizes. Working outside of the rules the bigger clubs began to employ coaches and pay players, using a series of tricks, such as calling managers ‘consultants’. Sometimes they were caught, sometimes they weren’t. Italy was slowly catching up with England, where there were already more than 4,000 registered professional footballers by 1914.20

From 1913–1914, Genoa’s star player Renzo De Vecchi, who was known as the ‘Son of God’ because of his precocious talent, was handsomely paid for his ‘work’ as a clerk for a Genoa bank. Other sectors of De Vecchi’s pay (and transfer fee) were hidden as ‘travel expenses’. Thanks to this new job, De Vecchi’s transfer from Milan to Genoa was allowed to go ahead. In general, however, before World War One, the federation dealt harshly with those found guilty of professionalism.

When Genoa poached two players from local rivals Andrea Doria in 1913, they were caught breaking the rules.21 Offered 1,000 lire each as a signing-on fee, the players accepted, but they had the bad luck to cash their joint cheque with a bank teller who was also a disgruntled Doria fan. Upset at the loss of two excellent players, the bank clerk copied the cheque and informed the football authorities. At first, the players were banned for life, a ban that was reduced to two years on appeal and then cut further by an amnesty. Both players proved to be excellent signings, going on to win three championships with Genoa and play for Italy.

The rationale behind the amateur ideal was ideological. Sport should not be played for money, which sullied the concepts of fair play and healthy physical activity. It was a leisure activity, not a job. These lofty ideals quickly collapsed in the face of the economic needs of clubs, presidents, players and the demands of fans for success. In the 1920s a number of very high-profile big-money transfers led to bitter public discussion and in the 1926 Viareggio Charter, professionalism was officially recognized for the first time. From that point on, players’ wages (as players, not bank clerks or lawyers) were subject to negotiation and the big clubs began to buy up the best talent. And it was not just players who were on the market. The best-paid football employees never took to the pitch themselves, but selected and trained their teams: the managers.

The first manager. The odyssey of William Garbutt

Foreigners had been largely responsible for setting up the game in Italy, and had been amongst the best early players. In 1912, Genoa became the first Italian club to appoint a professional manager. He was an Englishman, from Stockport, and was only 29 years old. William Garbutt had been a fine player with Reading and Woolwich Arsenal, before suffering a terrible injury while playing for Blackburn Rovers during a match witnessed, according to his own memoirs, by future Italian national coach Vittorio Pozzo. Garbutt’s salaried employment as Genoa manager was outside of the rules, so he was paid through a series of semi-legal means until the onset of professionalism in the second half of the 1920s.22

As with most Italian versions of early football history, the origins of Garbutt’s employment by Genoa are unclear. What is certain is that he took up the reins of power at the club in 1912, and went on to have a quite remarkable career in Italy. Although not a manager by trade, Garbutt introduced some of the modern training techniques he had experienced as a player in England. He planted poles in the ground for dribbling practice, and supervised jumping exercises, abolishing the desultory kickabouts that had previously passed for training at most clubs. In 1913 Genoa finished second in the northern championship and they went one better in 1915 in the controversial war-suspended tournament.23 It is said that the English manager also introduced a crucial aspect of post-match material culture to the Italian game – hot showers in the dressing room.

Genoa, which already had the best stadium in Italy, invested in the market, tempting players (illegally) from local rivals Doria and buying Renzo De Vecchi from Milan in 1913. Garbutt also used his contacts to bring over various English players. When war broke out, Garbutt returned to England before rejoining Genoa after the conflict, tempted by a wage increase to 8,000 lire a year. Genoa won the scudetto in both 1923 and 1924, and came close to a third successive championship in 1925.

Garbutt moved on to manage Roma in 1928, and then to Naples, where the team finished third twice in six seasons – their best-ever showing up to that point. Whilst in Naples he adopted a young orphan girl, Concettina Ciletti, an act of charity that endeared him to sentimental locals. The local press also accused him of hitting the bottle.24 Garbutt then took control at Athletic Club Bilbao, where he won a title just as the Spanish civil war broke out. In 1938 he began his third spell with Genoa.25 It is often said that the name given to managers in Italy – Il Mister – became popular thanks to the influence of Garbutt and other English managers in the 1930s. Even today players will refer to their managers as il mister in cliché-ridden post-match interviews: ‘who will play next week?’ – ‘decide il mister’; ‘That’s up to the mister’.26

When Italy entered World War Two in June 1940, Garbutt was advised to leave Italy but was tempted to stay on as his team had reached the Italian Cup final. He finally left the city on the eve of the final – which Genoa lost – and went into hiding in the Ligurian countryside with his wife, leaving his adopted Italian daughter behind. On 26 June, a warrant was issued for his arrest. Garbutt was too famous to be able to hide for long near Genoa, and in mid-July the couple were picked up. According to the arrest report, which was full of praise for the manager’s reputation, Garbutt had remained in Italy ‘thanks to his great sympathy for fascism’. After being held in a small and crowded cell for some time, Garbutt’s health and that of his Irish wife Anna began to deteriorate.