Reading FC – Without doubt, the best Italy has ever seen

In this guest post, Anthony Tomas looks back at Reading FC’s historic tour of Italy in 1913, which saw the side hailed as the best the Italians had seen. For more on the roots of football in Italy – and elsewhere – also check out my book, Origin Stories: The Pioneers Who Took Football to the World.

The 150th anniversary season of Reading FC (2021-22 season) should have been one of jubilation for the Berkshire club, but thanks to a points deduction, a humiliating FA Cup defeat and a relegation dogfight, it has in fact been one of severe disappointment, followed by a collective sigh of relief once survival was finally secured. With no permanent manager and books still a long way from being balanced, the 151st season is likely to continue in the same vein.

This campaign has, at least, provided opportunity to look back on the – rather modest – achievements that Reading have amassed since being formed above what is now a rather notorious night spot in the town on Christmas Day, 1871. Titles in the second, third and fourth tiers plus a whole three seasons in the top flight is as far as it goes it terms of league success, while two FA Cup semi-final defeats – most recently in heartbreaking fashion against Arsenal in 2015 – is as close as they have come to major silverware, which is hardly surprising, considering we are shining a spotlight on the club with the proud record of most defeats in the world’s most famous domestic cup competition. 

Reading FC’s Italian job

The two cups Reading have lifted are the 1988 Simod Cup – you know, officially the Full Members Cup? No? Ran from 1985-1992 to plug the schedule gap created by English clubs being banned from Europe after the Heysel disaster? Yes, later the Zenith Data Systems Cup, that’s the one – beating Luton Town 4-1 in what remains their only win at Wembley, and the 1941 London War Cup, running out 3-2 winners over Brentford at Stamford Bridge. It would be wonderful for the Royals to win a cup which wasn’t born out of tragedy or conflict, yet all the same, as a fan, I look forward to our participation in the Second English Civil War Memorial Trophy.

Reading have, however, had one title bestowed upon them which perhaps no one else in neither England nor the rest of the world can claim to have received, or ever will. The title of, “without doubt, the finest foreign team seen in Italy.”

The idea of such an accolade does sound ludicrous, you’re right. Reading have never played in European competition, after all. Maybe, it sounds less ludicrous if I told you this title was awarded back in May 1913? Yet, I fear the pendulum will swing back towards ludicrous when you discover at the time, the Biscuitmen – as they were then, after the town’s Huntley & Palmers biscuit factory – had, a few weeks prior, finished their Southern League campaign in eighth place.

Finishing a place above them in the 1912-13 Southern League were Exeter City, who, a year later, embarked on a tour of South America which included a match against Argentina and, famously, the first ever fixture of the Brazil national team. But while the Grecians’ galavanting was still thirteen months away, Reading were off on their own post-season adventure tour, which would take them to – no prizes for guessing where – Italy.

The idea for the tour was the brainchild of one Willy Garbutt, who played for Reading from 1903 to 1906, before playing for Woolwich Arsenal and Blackburn Rovers before retiring to Italy where he became manager of Genoa in 1912 and soon invited his former side to take on not only his team, but also the best the Northern Italian footballing landscape could offer. The invitation was accepted and on Friday 9 May 1913, fourteen Reading players and four directors departed Charing Cross station and the following evening arrived in Genoa, with all that train and ferry travel bisected by a lovely dinner in Paris on Friday evening.

There was little chance for the visitors to become acclimatised to their new surroundings as their opening match would take place the following afternoon against Garbutt’s troops, themselves runners-up in that season’s Prima Categoria, the forerunner to Serie A. Taking place at the first incarnation of the Stadio Luigi Ferraris, Genoa, featuring three Englishmen in their eleven, were beaten 4-2 by Reading who, according to captain Jack Smith’s tour diary in the Reading Observer, “would have won 10-0” had they taken it “seriously”. The eye-catching performance of the day, though, belonged to Attilio Fresia.

Having made his Italy debut a few days earlier, Fresia scored twice for the hosts and impressed the guests so much that they signed him, and in December that year he became the first Italian to play professional football in England. He apparently didn’t take to the English game (nothing is known of his exploits in Stoke on Tuesday nights, cold or otherwise) and returned home at the end of the 1913-14 season. 

In true pre-First World War football tour fashion, the hosts treated their English guests to a banquet that evening, which as any modern sports scientist will tell you, is more than ideal preparation for a match with AC Milan the following afternoon at 14:30. For those of you who have been paying attention, you’re correct, half two on a Monday! The game’s gone.

Milan calling

Any signs of fatigue from either the travel or the first match, or indeed the copious amounts of cuisine on offer the night before, were non-existent, as Reading put on what is now their most famous performance of the tour. Milan Football Club, as they then were, were bronze medallists in Italy that season and have, of course, since gone on to win seven European Cups as one of the most recognisable clubs in the world. But back on that Monday afternoon at Arena Civica, with no reputation to precede them, they were played off the park by a mid table Southern League outfit. Reading won the game 5-0 with Alan Foster scoring a hat trick as their conquering of Italy continued –  in an arena opened by Napoleon Bonaparte, no less. For what it’s worth, photographs show the kick-off time wasn’t quite the deterrent we may have thought. The Reading squad even had time for a little sightseeing, taking in the Duomo di Milano.

It was that triumph that prompted Milan-based national newspaper Corriere della Sera to print the line which is now immortal on one meander of the Thames Valley. With international football becoming more regular over the previous decade and Italy hosting the very first international club tournaments in Turin from 1908 onwards, featuring visitors from the likes of England, Germany and Switzerland, even then such an accolade wouldn’t have been dished out cheaply to the Biscuitmen.

The poor reporter who concocted that line must have been feeling rather silly just 48 hours later in what must be one of the earliest examples of commentator’s, or journalist’s, curse. Nothing is ever perfect, as Reading proved by losing 2-1 to the only side you’ve probably never heard of. Reading did as much rotating as one can with a fourteen-man squad, in their match with Casale, the fourth-placed team from the Italian championship that year, who nowadays ply their trade in Serie D Girone A. The headlines now read, “La Sorpresa di Casale”. Was it the rotation, the fatigue or having one eye on the upcoming games that stopped Reading in their tracks? It could have been any of them, or it might have been the fact that Casale’s pitch was apparently no more than 50 yards wide, suggesting home advantage may have been a factor. Perhaps long throws were very much in vogue in this corner of Piedmont, and now I’m trying hard not to make another Stoke City reference. 

The aforementioned upcoming matches to see out the tour would appear to be quite the test; the small matters of reigning Italian champions Pro Vercelli, less than 24 hours after the Casale defeat, then the Italy national team on Sunday, their fifth match in eight days. Though the Milan match is now seen as the highlight thanks to the fact that I Rossoneri have spent so much time at European football’s top table while Pro Vercelli haven’t tasted league success for a century and now reside in Serie C, it was arguably the Pro Vercelli victory that was the greatest of the tour. Foster and Ted Hanney scored a brace apiece, A Burton and Joe Bailey added one each as Reading dismantled the best Italy could offer 6-0 in an ill-tempered affair.

On to Turin…

Back to winning ways, it was on to Turin for the match against Italy in front of 15,000 spectators at Juventus’ Stadio Piazza d’Armi. Not learning much from the events of the week, Italy fielded eight Pro Vercelli players plus two from Genoa and one from Milan, meaning every player (assuming they had played) had lost to Reading already. The Italian coach probably wondered later why he had not picked the Casale XI, as Reading rounded off their tour with a 2-0 win thanks to first half strikes from Hanney and Bailey. Tactically inept when compared with their English opponents, it is odd to think that only 21 years on, Italy would be winning their first of four World Cups and such was the dominance of the Azzurri in the 1930s that Benito Mussollini would herald them as an important force within his fascist regime.

Reading, preparing for the long journey home as heroes, are said to have turned down the chance of a fixture with Germany as they couldn’t extend their stay. Perhaps as well, it could have been embarrassing for Die Mannschaft! The Reading squad did of course have one last chance to stuff themselves at another banquet, hosted by the president of the Italian Football Federation, Vittorio Rignon. By the afternoon of Tuesday 20th, they were back in Berkshire. A return tour the following year was proposed, but it appears this never took place, possibly due to the impending outbreak of war.

In true Reading fashion, the tour spurred them on to rather modest success over the next two seasons, finishing fourth and then second in the next two Southern League campaigns before the outbreak of The Great War. 

What of our stories’ protagonists? Joe Bailey became a decorated war hero, winning the Military Cross and Bar, but two of Reading’s travelling party did not return home from this trip to the continent. Alan Foster, hat-trick hero against Milan, was killed in action in 1916. The Reading Observer reported at the time, “Reading was hit like a thunderclap” by Foster’s death. Joe Dickenson was the other of the fourteen squad members to perish in battle. Attilio Fresia played and managed in Italy for the rest of his life which was cut short in 1923 after a respiratory illness, he was 32.

Willy Garbutt became involved in the Italian coaching setup and may already have been at the time of Reading’s visit. He is attributed with being instrumental in growing the popularity of Italian football, and laying the foundations for the success that followed in the 1930s. He wasn’t around to see it, as he was banished by Mussolini during his reign. Garbutt returned to Italy after World War Two, managing Genoa again. He passed away in England in 1964, aged 81. Relatively unknown at home, he was widely mourned in Italy. In the words of 1934 and 1938 World Cup winning coach Vittorio Pozzo, he was “the most important man in the history of Italian football”.

Perhaps the ten days Reading spent in Italy was what drove Garbutt to overhaul the Italian game. Without Reading, could Italy have never won four World Cups and two European championships? You could say there is plenty of doubt about that, but I would argue it’s senza dubbio.