Genoa Cricket and Football Club

Italy's historic first football club

The Genoa team that won Italy's first national
football championship in 1898

Italy's oldest surviving football club was founded on this day in 1893 in Genoa.

Originally named Genoa Cricket and Athletic Club, it was established by British Consular officials and for a number of years football was a minor activity.  Initially, Italians could not be members.

Football became more its focus after an English maritime doctor, James Spensley, arrived in Genoa in 1897 and organised a match against Football Club Torinese, which had been formed in Turin in 1894. Spensley insisted the club's rules be altered to allow Italians to play.

The match took place in January 1898 and although the attendance was only around 200 spectators, it was deemed a success by those who took part, particularly the Turin side, who won.  After a return match, plans were drawn up to form an Italian Football Federation and to organise a first Italian Championship.

Genoa were the inaugural champions, although only four teams took part and the competition was completed in the course of one day, in May, at the Velodromo Umberto I in Turin.   Spensley's team beat Internazionale of Milan in the final.

Genoa Cricket and Football Club has played at the
Stadio Luigi Ferraris since 1911

Nonetheless, in the statistical record books the 1898 title carries no less weight than the 2016 version, which involved 20 teams playing 38 matches each over a period of nine months.

Genoa, who responded to winning the 1898 title by changing their name to Genoa Cricket and Football Club, dropping athletics from the title, and went on to win again four times in the next five years, usually with Spensley in goal.  They also took part in the first organised international match when they played a friendly against Nice in 1903.

In all they have been Italian champions nine times, although their last success was in 1923-24.

The club's English heritage is celebrated by supporters, who often display banners in English.  Although forced by the ruling Fascists to change the club name to an Italianised Genova 1893 Circolo del Calcio in 1928, they reverted to Genoa Cricket and Football Club in 1945 and still go under that name today.

Spensley's part in the heritage of the Ligurian port city is recognised with a plaque on the wall of the house where he lived.

Originally based in the Campasso district of Genoa, they have played since 1911 at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris, the oldest Italian football ground still staging professional football.  The stadium has been shared since 1946 with Genoa's much younger neighbours, Sampdoria.

Travel tip:

Genoa, wedged between the Ligurian Sea and the Apennine mountains, is a colourful port city. There is much to enjoy about the city's vibrant character as well as many outstanding buildings, such as the Romanesque Cathedral of San Lorenzo, with its black-and-white-striped façade and frescoed interior.

The bronze fountain that forms the centrepiece of
the Piazza de Ferrari in Genoa

Travel tip:

Genoa's Piazza de Ferrari, as well as being renowned for its bronze fountain, is surrounded by the headquarters of a number of banks, reflecting the status the city enjoyed at the end of the 19th century as Italy's financial centre, alongside Milan.  The Teatro Carlo Felice opera house is another nearby attraction.

(Photo of Piazza de Ferrari by Twice25/Rinina25 CC BY-SA 2.5)
(Photo of Stadio Luigi Ferraris by Gabriel Rinaldi CC BY-SA 4.0)

More reading:

Tough backdrop to Italy's first football championship

Meeting in a restaurant led to formation of Internazionale

Giuseppe Meazza - Italian football's first superstar

Books:

Calcio: A History of Italian Football, by John Foot

Forza: The Fall and Rise of Italian Football, by Paddy Agnew

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Paolo Maldini - football great

Milan defender's record-breaking career spanned 25 years

Paolo Maldini

Paolo Maldini, the AC Milan defender who won the European Cup and Champions League more times than any other player in the modern era, celebrates his 48th birthday today, having been born on this day in 1968 in Milan.

A Milan player for the whole of his 25-year professional career - plus six years as a youth player before that - Maldini won Europe's biggest club prize five times. Only Francisco Gento, a member of the all-conquering Real Madrid side of the 1950s and 60s, has more winner's medals.

Maldini also won seven Serie A championships plus one Coppa Italia and five Supercoppa Italiana titles in domestic competition, as well as five European Super Cups, two Intercontinental Cups and a World Club Cup.

Only in international football did trophies elude him, although he played on the losing side in the finals of both the World Cup, in 1994, and the European Championships, in 2000.

His European Cup/Champions League triumphs came under the management of Arrigo Sacchi (1989 and 1990), Fabio Capello (1994) and Carlo Ancelotti (2003 and 2007).

The 1994 victory by 4-0 against Barcelona was described as one of the greatest team performances of all time.  Under Capello, Maldini was also part of the Milan team that went unbeaten through the whole of the 1991-92 season, setting an Italian record of 58 games without defeat.

Maldini, who made his senior Milan debut as a 16-year-old in 1985, holds the record for most appearances for the club at 902 in all competitions. No player in history has made more appearances in Serie A (647) or in UEFA club competitions (174).

Following his retirement after the 2008–09 season, Milan retired the number three shirt in his honour. He was 40 years and 339 days old when he made his last appearance against Roma at the club's home stadium at San Siro in May 2009.  Only his teammate Alessandro 'Billy' Costacurta (41 years 25 days) and the former Sampdoria stalwart Pietro Vierchowod (41 years 10 days) were older among outfield players in Serie A history.

His international career brought him 126 caps, a  number surpassed only by Gianluigi Buffon and Fabio Cannavaro, and 74 appearances as captain, which was a record until Cannavaro, the 2006 World Cup-winning captain, overtook him on the way to a new mark of 79 appearances as skipper.

A player known not only for his proficiency as a defender but for his composure on the ball, Maldini is part of a football dynasty.

His father, Cesare, who died earlier this year at the age of 84, also played for AC Milan and Italy and had a successful coaching career that included two spells at San Siro, as well as periods in charge of the Italy Under-21 team, winning three European Under-21 championships, and the senior national team.

Now his eldest son, Christian, has worn the captain's armband for AC Milan's Under-19 team.  Paolo's younger son, Daniel, is also training in the Milan youth system.

Although Cesare was born in Trieste, he was living in Milan when Paolo was born.  Married since 1994 to Adriana Fossa, a Venezuelan former model, he guards his private life zealously and among only a few details he has revealed about his life away from the pitch he once told a reporter he owned 100 pairs of jeans.

The waterfront Piazza dell'Unità d'Italia in Trieste

Travel tip:

Trieste, the main city of the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, lies close to the Slovenian border.  Once the main seaport of the Austro-Hungarian empire, it has a mix of styles, with the seafront, canals and imposing squares reminiscent of Venice, and the coffee houses and architecture showing the Austrian influence dating from the era of Hapsburg domination.

Travel tip:

Although AC Milan play at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in the San Siro district of Milan, the club's administrative headquarters is about three kilometres away in Via Aldo Rossi in the Portello district, accessible from the centre of Milan via Linea 1 on the metro, getting off at the QT8 station.  Visitors can enjoy the Mondo Milan Museum, which charts the 117-year history of the club, which was founded in 1899 by two Englishmen, Alfred Edwards and Herbert Kilpin.

(Photo of Paolo Maldini by Yelena Rybakova for Soccer.ru CC BY-SA 3.0)

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