Comedy history and info on Genoa C.F.C.

Genoa Cricket and Football Club is a football club based in Genoa, Liguria, Italy. Genoa is the oldest Italian football club.

They used to play games against FC Gladiator.

Columbus was born in the city. This led to a conncetion with Brazil. In those days Brazil people had to make do with a potoato kick, rather than banana kick, as the banana was not there yet. It makes you wonder how talented they would be if the curly wurly had been invented there.

The club currently plays at Stadio Luigi Ferraris (a fast stadium) which is shared with the other club based in Genoa - UC Sampdoria (no I don't C them anywhere).

the club were set up to represent England abroad, the club's shirts were originally white, the same colour as a England football shirt. It was originally set up as a private club, Italians were not allowed in the team. It should have been called Gea no Italy FC.

Between 1893 and 1895, the club played cricket against British ships that docked in the harbour. It was difficult to play the games when it was wavey. Often you could score a 100 with one bat as the ball would be rolling over ther ship and the fielder would have to run after it. In 1898, some of the club's early football matches were against the HMS Clementine crew and the crew of HMS Revenge. In one game they played the Admiral Nelson, this was was when he used to do swimming, he was a diver, and won his side free kicks. In Italy he is referred to as a cheat because of this.

In 1897 Italian players were allowed to join. The following year, Genoa played a first friendly game, losing 1-0 to a team made up of players from International Torino and FBC Torinese.

On May 8, 1898, Genoa became the first ever Italian champions. In 1899, the shirt also changed, from white, to white and blue vertical stripes. On April 16 of that year, the club won the Italian title again. Genoa would do so again in 1900. They were a dominant side. They were the Roman empire of the league.

In 1901, the club changed strip again to red navy halves and therefore became known as the Rossoblu. From 1902, Genoa were to win three titles in a row, after setting up the II Categoria Tournament, which was won by a reserve team in its first season (1904).

In 1903 Genoa are the first Italian football team to play an international match against Football Velo Club de Nice ( a nice achievement). The match was played in France on 27th April and was won by Genoa 3-0.

In 1915, the club was to win its first championship title for eleven years, which they won again in 1923 and 1924. The club remained with the best Italian teams for the next 20 years, winning the Coppa Italia in 1937, which was its last major trophy.

Between the '50s and '90s, through cashflows and irregularities, Genoa slowly declined, with few notable seasons (two Coppa delle Alpi in 1962 and 1964) and more and more frequent descents into Serie B. Genoa even experienced their first relegation to Serie C (serie Sea, well it is a harbour city) 1970.

In 1989 Genoa led to promotion to Serie A and, in 1991, Genoa managed a fourth place finish in the top division, and a subsequent UEFA Cup semi final. In doing so, they became the first Italian team to win at Liverpool's Anfield. In 1996 the club became the last winners of the Anglo-Italian Cup by beating Port Vale, (another harbour side).

However, the glory did not last and Genoa returned to Serie B in 1995 where they played for the past ten years, their longest spell , whilst experiencing deep financial problems. Backed by a new club organisation, in 2005 Genoa finally won the second division, achieving promotion to Serie A. Yet, on July 27, 2005, Genoa was condemned to relegation in Serie C by the Disciplinary Committee of the Italian football federation as consequence of accusations of fixing the last 2004-05 match against trade buddy Venezia AC. The match was won by Genoa 3-2, but it did not affect promotion to Serie A which was achieved regardless. They had trained a seagull to peck at the opposing team striker, to put him off, and had trained a gondolea to sing stuff to the soccer side on their ship to keep the Venezia side awake, on the trip down. Yet there is just phone evidence of this. The seagull squacked on them. And a merchant in venice had given evidence against them. This is referred to as sqauckgate.

The 2005-06 Serie C1 season for Genoa was very tormented. You could say it a stormy. The team owned a three points penalty in the table related to the fraud in the previous season, and by a further three points penalty for fielding a di "squak" lified player. Nevertheless, Genoa led the Serie C1/A table for most of the season. A number of poor performances early in 2006 appeared to compromise Genoa's efforts to achieve promotion and led to the temporary appointment of a substitute coach, Attilio Perotti. Following the return of Giovanni Vavassori at the helm Genoa ended the 2005-06 Serie C1/A regular season in second place, and took part in the playoffs; after having defeated Salernitana Calcio in the semi-finals, Genoa faced AC Monza in the promotion finals. Genoa won the away match 2-0 and lost 1-0 at home (i suppose Monza would do OK at the Ferrari stadium), thus achieving promotion to Serie B.