Double World Cup-winning manager Vittorio Pozzo described William Garbutt as ‘the
most important man in the history of Italian football’. Yet very few people outside of
Italy know the Englishman’s name, let alone his achievements.
Garbutt was the original ‘Mister’, a term Italians still use for managers to this day,
and the methods he brought to his adopted nation would help them achieve world domination
long before England, the inventors of the sport.
Credited with bringing training, tactics and transfers to the country, he remains a legendary
figure of the Italian game more than a century after arriving on the peninsula.
Garbutt was born on 9 January 1883 in Hazel Grove near Stockport, one of nine siblings.
He began playing football after joining the army and signed for Reading aged 20 before
joining Woolwich Arsenal two years later, where he reached the FA Cup semi-finals twice.
He then moved to Blackburn Rovers in 1908 but suffered a bad injury in a game that,
according to Garbutt himself, was attended by Vittorio Pozzo.
His playing days cut short, Garbutt headed to work on the docks in Genoa with his wife
Anna in 1912, but before long he had become the first professional manager in Italian
football history. Aged just 29 and with no management experience,
the reason he was entrusted with the role at one of the foremost clubs of the era in
Italy remains something of a mystery. Some say he was recommended by Pozzo, others that
Irish youth team coach Thomas Coggins was responsible.
Professionalism wouldn’t become legal in Italy until the Viareggio Charter was drawn
up in 1926, but Garbutt was paid through loopholes in the system and proved to be an astute investment.
He introduced modern training methods, such as planting poles for players to slalom around
to improve ball control. Garbutt paid more attention to fitness and tactics than any
of his predecessors and was also a savvy operator off the training pitch, being the first manager
to conduct transfers - albeit illegally – as he organised the signing of players from AC
Milan and city neighbours Andrea Doria. Italian football was some way behind England, but
Garbutt was helping them catch up. In 1913 Genoa came second in the northern
championship, before topping it in the war-interrupted 1915 season. They were later awarded the national
title by the Italian FA, being regarded as the strong favourites to have won it at the
time of the suspension. Garbutt returned to Genoa after the war and
led the club to the Scudetto in 1923 and 1924 - which remains the club’s last title.
Impressed Italy boss Pozzo took the young manager to the 1924 Olympics as his assistant,
where they were knockout out by Switzerland in the quarter-finals.
Garbutt then became the first manager of newly-formed AS Roma in 1928, who he led to a Coppa CONI
trophy during his two-year stay before moving further south to Napoli.
Napoli finished third twice under his guidance, their best-ever result at the time and a feat
they wouldn’t repeat until the 1960s. Garbutt grew even more popular in the city for adopting
local orphan Concettina Ciletti. However, Benito Mussolini’s sanctions against
foreigners in Italy forced the Englishman to leave for the Basque country in 1935, where
he led Athletic Bilbao to the Spanish title, pipping Real Madrid by two points, before
returning once more to Genoa via AC Milan in 1937 after the outbreak of the Spanish
civil war. Italy entered World War II in June 1940 and
Garbutt was again advised to leave the country, but was arrested after attempting to hide
in the Ligurian countryside with his wife. They were exiled to the south of Italy before
being moved to an internment camp in the Abruzzo region until Mussolini was removed from power
in July 1943. Garbutt’s wife Anna was tragically killed
while at church following Allied bombing, after they had found their way to a refugee
camp in Imola. Once the city was liberated, Garbutt headed south to stay with the family
of his adopted daughter, before agreeing to re-join Genoa one final time in 1946, where
he worked as manager for two years until stepping down after 16 seasons in the role to become
a scout for the remainder of his football career.
Garbutt’s Italian odyssey ended in 1951 with his return to England, 38 years after
he first set foot in Genoa. He died aged 81 in 1964, cared for by Concettina in modest
surroundings near Leamington Spa. News of his death went unnoticed in England,
but in Italy it earned obituaries in every major newspaper.
Rory Smith’s book titled ‘Mister’ – a reference to Garbutt’s linguistic legacy
- comes with the sub-title ‘the men who taught the world how to beat England at their
own game’. This description is perfectly apt. Garbutt
arrived as an inexperienced 29-year-old dock worker in a country where football was still
an amateur game, far behind England in its development.
By the time of his retirement, Italy had won two World Cups and it would still be another
15 years before England would achieve the feat.
It’s no surprise, then, that he’s considered one of the heroes of Italian football’s
formative years.