This article compiles information about the history of the first football clubs in Italy. The practice of football in the country began in the late 19th century, with the founding of the first clubs, which played a key role in popularizing and organizing the sport. These clubs contributed to the development of the first official competitions and helped establish football as one of Italy's leading sports, reflecting cultural and social changes in the country.
Historical context Discussions about which Italian football clubs are the oldest are controversial due to the fact that some teams that were protagonists in the early days of modern football (in the country that includes distant versions of the ball game, such as calcio storico fiorentino) were founded as football sections of multi-sport clubs that provided separate sections for different disciplines (e.g. athletics, gymnastics, cycling, and cricket), or practiced the new sport within clubs before the formal creation of sections dedicated to football.A case in point is that of the Società Ginnastica Roma. In some cases, no football section was formed and the sport remained unofficial.A case in point is the gymnastic club Virtus Partenopea.
In addition, some of the first football events were the tournaments organized by the Italian National Gymnastics Federation (FGNI, later FGI), i.e. not a purely football organization... Gymnastics football, officially called "giuoco del calcio", had its origins in the city of Rovigo, where the professor of physical education Francesco Gabrielli began to promote it in 1893, and in Treviso, where the first edition of the Gare Nazionali dei Giuochi Ginnastici was held in 1896. The rules of gymnastic football, initially characterized by numerous peculiarities elaborated by Gabrielli himself, were gradually brought into line with the regulations established by the International Football Association Board (IFAB), until their complete adoption on May 6, 1903.
Although the Federazione Ginnastica thus had an older football tradition than the Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio, founded on March 26, 1898 as FIF (Federazione Italiana del Football), and the aforementioned events were originally considered official national championships, FIGC only recognized the tournaments it organized (the first of which was the 1898 Italian Football Championship won by the Genoa Cricket and Football Club), as well as the three First, Second and Third Division tournaments organized by the Italian Football Confederation (CCI) in the 1921-1922 season. However, FIF, which, unlike FGNI, adopted the full IFAB regulations from the outset, did not join the organization until 1913, when the newly formed Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) became a member. For this reason, the entire Italian football activity was technically born outside the IFAB, as was that of the entire world with the exception of the British Isles, an element that allowed the regulatory independence of the national federations (which in some cases has continued to exist).
This and other factors, such as the fact that some groups of sportsmen played football sporadically under the name of unregistered clubs, make it difficult to carry out a direct and definitive historical reconstruction to determine which was the first football team founded in Italy.
Overview of the oldest teams The following is a list of the football clubs or sections founded in Italy up to 1900, by region to which they belong, with particular reference to the regional capitals; however, if there are no clubs founded in the 19th century in a given region, the oldest teams in the area and its administrative center are listed.
If the sources do not indicate a different date, the creation of the football section of a club is considered to be contemporary with the creation of the club itself.
Teams from the Aosta Valley It seems that in the 19th century in and around Aosta there was no team dedicated officially or unofficially to football. The earliest known team in the city, as well as in the whole Valley, was the football section of the Augusta Praetoria, founded in 1908 and disbanded in 1910. It should not be confused with the almost homonymous Augusta Praetoria Sports, an early incarnation of the Unione Sportiva Aosta (1911).
Further information on less recent football activity is scarce. The other most notable club in the area is Vallée d'Aoste of Saint-Christophe, which was founded in 1971.
Piedmontese teams
In Turin, with the exception of the Reale Società Ginnastica di Torino (founded in 1844, but which did not establish its football section until 1897), the first club was the Torino Football & Cricket Club, founded in 1887..Il passato e le origini del F.C. Torino, Il Paese Sportivo, 13 luglio 1927 The Torino Football & Cricket Club then merged with the Nobili Torino (a club founded in 1889),. to form Internazionale Torino in 1891. Also in the Piedmontese capital, the Foot-Ball Club Torinese was founded in 1894 as the football section of the Circolo Pattinatori Valentino 1874,Verso il venticinquennio del football (and became an autonomous club three years later), followed in 1897 by Unione Football (a little-known gymnastics team whose founding date is purely indicative),. and Sport-Club Juventus, and in 1899 by Sport-Club Audace Torino.
Outside of Turin, the people of Alessandria were the most involved in football. According to some accounts, the sport was introduced to the people of Alessandria in 1891 by Edoardo Bosio, and in 1894 a match was played between a local team and Genoa. Later, in 1896, the Unione Pro Sport Alessandria was founded, and in 1898 another team, about which there is no further information, was formed. In the rest of Piedmont, the Società Ginnastica Pro Vercelli, founded in 1887, but whose section dedicated to football was founded in 1903, and the Società Ginnastica Pietro Micca of Biella, founded in 1899 under the name Società Ginnastica Biellese, which officially began playing football in 1902, are particularly noteworthy. Other clubs that practiced football, but exclusively in the context of gymnastics, were the Società Ginnastica Pro Novara, founded in 1881 as Società Ginnastica e Scherma Novara, the Società Ginnastica Forza e Virtù, founded in Novi Ligure in 1892, and the San Filippo Neri of Tortona, of uncertain date of foundation. In 1898, there are also reports of a match between gymnastic teams in Cuneo, and the foundation of the Unione Sportiva Trinese (fully active in football since 1919).. Finally, in 1900, the Ivrea Sporting Club was founded, whose football team was formed in 1901.
Ligurian teams
In 1893, Genoa CFC was founded in Genoa, the oldest Italian football club still active and the one with the oldest founding document, although it was already active in 1890 without official status, using a pitch lent to the future Genoans by Wilson and McLaren, two Scottish industrialists.. Also competing to represent the capital of Liguria at the time were the Società Ginnastica Andrea Doria, founded in 1895, with a football section founded in 1900, and two clubs from the Sampierdarena district (then an independent town, not yet incorporated into the capital): the Liguria Foot Ball Club, founded in 1897, and the Società Ginnastica Sampierdarenese, founded in 1891 but with a football section founded in 1899. The Società Ginnastica Ligure Cristoforo Colombo, founded in 1877, also established a football section, but not until 1907, while the Società Ginnastica Raffaele Rubattino, founded in 1894, did not establish a dedicated section until 1906.. Similarly, the Unione Sportiva Sestri Ponente 1897, based in the Genoese suburb of the same name (an autonomous municipality at the time), founded a football section in the century following the one in question, which was later incorporated into the Fratellanza Sportiva Sestrese Calcio 1919, while the Società Ginnastica Nicolò Barabino, founded in 1897 in Sampierdarena, did not create a specific section for football.
Outside the context of Great Genoa, one finds the Fratellanza Ginnastica Savonese and the Unione Sportiva San Filippo Neri of Albenga, founded in 1883 and 1893 respectively, which did not develop the practice of football in an official capacity until the century following their foundation. The Fratellanza Ginnastica Savonese, in particular, founded its "games section" (Savona Calcio) in 1907, while the Società Ginnastica Pro Chiavari was also founded in 1893 and created its first "football section" in 1915, temporarily absorbing the Entella Foot-Ball Club..
Lombard teams Milan's oldest football team was the Societa' per l'Educazione Fisica Mediolanum, founded in 1896 as Societa' Ginnastica Mediolanum, with its football section founded in 1898. The second team in the capital was the Milan Foot-Ball and Cricket Club, founded in 1899. Other old clubs that played football, albeit unofficially, were Forza e Coraggio, founded in 1870, and Pro Patria Società Ginnastica di Milano, founded in 1883, in addition to Pro Italia and Civici Pompieri.
In the rest of Lombardy, however, the first football section was founded by the Foot Ball Club Casteggio 1898. Previously, in 1874 in Lodi, the Società Lodigiana di Ginnastica e Scherma, which later became the Associazione Sportiva Fanfulla (which founded its football section in 1908),Lucio Zanoncelli, Origini ed evoluzioni dello sport lodigiano dal 1874 al 1924, on p. 11, recalls the sporting career of one of its founders (Marcello Ghisio, who joined the gymnastics section of the A.S. Fanfulla in 1904) and on pp. 26-27 the modification of the statutes to include other sports, including football (Corriere dell'Adda of May 10, 1908). in 1876 the Società Ginnastica Gallaratese (which founded its football section in 1909), in 1878 the Società Ginnastica Monzese Forti e LiberiThe Società Ginnastica Monzese Forti e Liberi sent its own representative in 1896 to attend the first exhibitions of gymnastic soccer in Treviso promoted by Francesco Gabrielli, cf. and the Società Bergamasca di Ginnastica e Scherma (the latter inaugurated its football section in 1913) were founded in the field of gymnastics, in 1879 the Sempre Liberi of Cassano Magnago (whose section was active in the following century), and the Società Ginnastica Pavese (which managed Pavia internally for two years in 1912-1913), in 1881 the Società Ginnastica Pro Patria et Libertate of Busto Arsizio, and in 1895 the Società Canottieri Lecco, which founded its football section in 1912. Also in the last years of the 19th century, but with doubtful dates, the Labor Sportiva of Seregno (which merged in 1920 with the Seregno Foot Ball Club 1913) and the Unione Ginnastica Vogherese (which also officially founded its football section in 1920, later merged with the Associazione Vogherese Calcio) were founded.Alessandro Disperati, Daniela Gastaldo, La storia dell'A.C. Voghera dal 1914 ad oggi - Primo volume, Varzi (PV), Edizioni Guardamagna (p. 19).
Teams from Trentino-Alto Adige
The oldest sports club in Trento, among those that have played football in their history, seems to be the Unione Ginnastica, founded in 1860. This club, together with the Pro Trento club (whose date of foundation is unknown), has been playing amateur football since the beginning of the 20th century.
Beyond the borders of the Municipality of Trento, three other multisport clubs, founded in the 19th century, had or have a football background: The Unione Sportiva Rovereto, founded in 1878 as the Unione Ginnastica Roveretana, which developed into a football club in 1921; the Turnverein Meran, founded in Merano in 1886 (the year in which activity in the discipline began is unknown, as is the creation of a section dedicated to football); and the Unione Sportiva Arco, founded in 1895 in the municipality of the same name, which formally initiated the practice of the sport in 1921.