AC Milan, Inter Milan, AS Roma and Genoa CFC are European and Italian soccer royalty, carrying 10 European Champions League and 38 Italian titles between them.
Success, passion and semi-religious followings are well-known common traits of the clubs, but a lesser known commonality prevails between them: their founding fathers meant for them to play cricket as well as football.
Indeed, in some cases these clubs were primarily dedicated to taking wickets rather than kicking goals to begin with.
Italy's Northwest is where the country's first cricket and football clubs were born at the end of the 1800s, due to a strong British presence in the textile industry and around the strategic Italian port of Genoa (which was especially important after the opening of the Suez Canal shipping route in 1869).
Paolo Maldini, left, and Javier Zanetti celebrate AC Milan and Inter Milan's Champions League triumphs in 2007 and 2010 respectively Source: Getty Images
This allowed the development of clubs based on what already existed in England for both football and cricket.
"They were seasonal sports, so often the same player practices one in summer and the other in winter," Simone Gambino, Honorary President of the Italian Cricket Federation, tells SBS Italian.
But while association football quickly became a national obsession, cricket was soon forgotten and relegated as an amusement within elite British social circles.
Italian players had struggled to be involved in some cricket teams, which were dominated by expert British players. Yet football not only embraced Italian players, but local authorities in 1908 attempted to 'nationalise' the championship favoring Italian teams with clear Italian membership to the detriment of the "Football Clubs" of British origin.
Milan Football & Cricket Club founders, in Milan, Italy December 1899 Source: Wikimedia
It was an attitude that marked the end of the era of the British pioneers like Genoa's legendary defender/goalkeeper Dr. James Richardson Spensley and Milan's Herbert Kilpin, while marking the birth of future football giants such as Inter Milan.
Genoa CFC, by the blessing of Queen Victoria
The first club to officially establish itself in Italy was actually the Torino Football & Cricket club in 1887 whose founder had learned the sports from his English colleagues of textile company Thomas & Adams. However, this club was short-lived and after a series of mergers it disappeared entirely.
Still kicking on today, the Genoa Cricket and Athletic Club was founded in 1893 at the British consulate of Genoa, in the presence of the Consul General, representing Queen Victoria.
When the club was originally set up, Italians were initially not permitted to join in, with only Britons on the field.
And while today the name of the Serie A club is Genoa Cricket & Football Club, soccer is the only game it plays, despite a failed attempt to resuscitate the cricket team in the 2000s.
The lost origins of AC Milan
Genoa Cricket and Football Club fans during the Serie A match between Genoa CFC and US Sassuolo at Stadio Luigi Ferraris on January 6, 2018 in Genoa, Italy. Source: Getty Images Europe
Few know that 'Milan Football & Cricket Club' was the original name of football giant AC Milan. And up until four years ago, the club's original name was a matter of speculation as no official documents were available.
That was until one day a document emerged: the only surviving copy of the first statute of the Milan Football & Cricket Club. As the only pure testimony of the club's birth, it was quickly acquired at auction by Giuseppe La Scala, a lawyer and spokesperson of the AC Milan small shareholders who donated it to the club.
"It cost a lot, but to those who suggested that with that sum I could have bought a big car or a prestigious watch, I replied that I travel very well by train and that to know the exact time I can look at my Swatch", La Scala tells SBS Italian.
On the front page of the original document sits the name of club president, British vice-consul Alfred Edwards, and club vice-president and Captain of the cricket team Edward Nathan, whose uncle incidentally became mayor of Rome in 1907.
Milan Football & Cricket Club Statute Source: Courtesy of Giuseppe La Scala
But, as it was for many Italian clubs, football took over in popularity and it was another British gentleman, textile entrepreneur Herbert Kilpin, who would become a legend of the club.
He retired in 1908 disappointed by the Italian football federation's negative attitude towards foreign player.
Inter, Roma and a cricket pedigree
Two other grand Italian clubs have cricket in their distinguished histories.
Internazionale Milano (Inter Milan) was founded in 1908 as a members of Milan Football & Cricket Club fought against the original team's decision to close the door to foreign players.
AS Roma has never been a cricket team in its current iteration but was established in 1927 as the result of the merger of three older clubs, including Roman, which was also a cricket club originally.
A second innings for Italian cricket?
Once the sport of the expatriate British elites, now cricket is the game of the 'new Italians' — first or second generation migrants hailing mostly from cricket-loving countries such as India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
In fact the Italian national cricket team, which will play International T20 matches this year, is mostly made of players born overseas, not all of them citizens.
Sri Lanka-born captain Gayashan Ranga de Silva Munasinghe led the Italian squad in the 2018–19 ICC World Twenty20 Europe Qualifier, featuring players from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, South Africa and Australia.
Gayashan "Shan" Ranga Source: Facebook
