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00:00It is the 125th birthday of Milan and the mission is fulfilled.
00:07The remains of the founder of Milan go in their place, in the family of the illustrious Milanese, to the Monumental Cemetery of Milan.
00:15For several years there was already the inscription of Herbert Kilpin at the Milanese Pantheon,
00:21but now even his vibrant bones of Rosso Nero go to the right place, at the right time.
00:30For the ninth son of Edward Kilpin and Sarah Smith, there are still pilgrimages to Nottingham,
00:37to Mansfield Road, where he was born, in that subtle boundary between man and legend,
00:42which he investigates with his analysis, the historical lawyer Rosso Nero, Leandro Cantamessa.
00:48I have always wondered if Herbert Kilpin was a person turned legend or a legend turned person.
00:58I prefer this second solution, because its scope in the history of Milan
01:05resembles more to what belongs to the category of legends, rather than to what is human.
01:14It is moving, because this gentleman, who comes from England, from Nottingham,
01:22after having occupied, if it is true what I have read here and there,
01:27from Pizzi and Merletti, comes to work, first in Turin, then in Milan,
01:33and comes to invent football in this city, football that already existed in Genoa and Turin.
01:42This is a symbol, certainly, and seeing Kilpin in the photographs of the time
01:48is also vaguely paradoxical, because the shirt was what it was,
01:55but they played with long trousers and I don't think they had particular tactics when they went out on the pitch.
02:05The thing that makes even more impression is the distinction between that football
02:13and the football that has been played for many years, let's say until the 1960s, and today's football.
02:22I must say that, compared to that, it has lost a lot of romanticism and it is a sin, all considered.
02:30I conclude by saying what I have already said at the beginning, it is a legend, it was very good like that.
02:41Kilpin, on his land, was a footballer belonging to the second category of fans,
02:46but from us, at the end of the eighties, he was considered an ace.
02:51Herbert went down in history for his photo with the English cap,
02:56a red and black shirt with collar and Milan stamp, red cross in white field,
03:01long trousers made of canvas, almost like a screen, and socks supported by an elastic.
03:07Football was his true love, so much so that on the day of his marriage, in 1905,
03:12Kilpin flees to Genoa, where he is scheduled for a meeting between the Grasshoppers of Zurich
03:18and an Italian representative, let's hear the journalist of the Gazzetta dello Sport, Massimo Oriani.
03:26Without Herbert Kilpin, Milan would not exist. He was practically one of the fathers of Italian football.
03:32He started playing for Internazionale Torino, the first two Italian championships,
03:38lost against Genoa to the point that he promised his opponents that he would found a team that would beat them.
03:46So when he moved to Milan, he did, because he founded AC Milan,
03:51Milan Football and Cricket Club, with which he won the first Scudetto in 1901,
03:57and the motto, which is what we still hear today in San Siro before every game, is his.
04:03We will be a team of devils, our colors will be red like fire and black like the fear we will instill in our opponents.
04:11Unfortunately, he died very young, in 1916, his bones are still kept in the Famedio of the Monumental Cemetery of Milan,
04:21where there are the great protagonists of the history, not only clearly sporting, Milanese,
04:27and thanks to some great Milanese supporters, Luigi La Rocca, who is one of the great historic fans of Milan,
04:37a very beautiful documentary has also been shot, which can be found on YouTube, The Lord of Milan,
04:43where the whole history of Kilpin is retraced, and where you can also see how in his apartment,
04:49where he was born, above the butcher shop in Nottingham, there is now a plaque that recalls his birth,
04:56and there is a beautiful emblem of Milan on the window of that shop, which is currently unfortunately abandoned.
05:02However, Kilpin is the history of Milan, it is Milan.
05:07An all-round founder, he expressed himself in all roles, both managerial and sporting,
05:13he was in fact a defender, midfielder, attacker, coach, captain and manager, after being nothing less than the founder.
05:21And here is some analogy with what 87 years after Kilpin would have been the re-founder of Milan, Silvio Berlusconi,
05:30who was the owner, the president, the fan, the father of the players,
05:34and that if he had had a little more time, he would have gladly become the coach.
05:39But if Silvio was born in Milan, the city of Alessandro Manzoni, Herbert was born in Nottingham, the city of Robin Hood,
05:47as the historic black and red speaker, Gegio Lanzoni, recalls.
05:52We love Herbert Kilpin all his life.
05:55The wonderful origin, he was born in Nottingham, the city of Robin Hood,
06:00grandson and son of a butcher and a tailor, so a humble origin, but he does not stop,
06:06he begins to live his life as a worker.
06:09Nottingham was famous for Tessile, Pizzi and Merletti, and then he leaves his land to pursue his passion.
06:18This is, I think, the great strength that Herbert Kilpin gave to the history of Milan,
06:26without borders, where your passion takes you to the top.
06:31And Pizzi and Merletti, the details, the style, the search for beauty.
06:38I think his story is our DNA.
06:44His mythology is made by the flask that, according to some, he also carried on board,
06:50while the other Kilpinian icons are the mustache, the good whiskey and the cigarette.
06:56If you think of Herbert, passion, spontaneity, humanity come to mind.
07:02A sort of black and red baron in British style, a black and red thread of fate
07:07that makes it seem absolutely normal and consequential, then over the decades,
07:13that Mr. Paron could only become a Milanese.
07:17The thoughts and feelings of the famous journalist Andrea Vianello.
07:21For us Milanese Romans, who live a strange feeling, to love the team from our heart from afar,
07:29and here in this city, instead, to be, how to say, surrounded by the madness of Romanists and Laziari,
07:36the roots are important.
07:38And if they arrive at the end of the 20th century, it's another city, Milan.
07:43But when I chose to become a Milaner at the age of eight,
07:47I certainly did it because there were great players like Rivera, Prati, a wonderful team,
07:51but also for the colors.
07:53And who chose the colors? Our founder.
07:56With that wonderful phrase in which he said that we would become a team of devils,
08:03red like fire, black like the fear that we should instill in our opponents.
08:11That phrase is our passion.
08:16The remains of Herbert Kielpin, for years hidden, unknown to everyone,
08:21at the Major Cemetery in Milan, in the field reserved for the deceased Protestants,
08:25were found after careful research by a collector and historical memory of Milan,
08:31Luigi Larocca.
08:32And thanks to him, they were deposited, for the interest of the Rossoneri Society itself,
08:38in a tomb more consonant to his fame, in a column of the Monumental Cemetery of Milan.
08:44What remains today of all this?
08:47He tells it with his fresh and sparkling voice.
08:50The Milanese influencer, Alessandro Jacobone.
08:53Herbert Kielpin was not just a footballer, a dreamer, a revolutionary, as they say.
08:59With few friends and a passion for football, he founded AC Milan.
09:03Not for fun, but for love.
09:06Kielpin carried with him not only the English football technique,
09:10but also an idea of ​​a team that would have united the whole city under one flag,
09:14obviously that of the Rossoneri.
09:16Thanks to him, Milan finds a sporting identity.
09:19And that small company, almost by chance, then becomes a legend.
09:24The legend that we all know.
09:26Herbert Kielpin is the beating heart of Milan,
09:28the first beat of a story destined to never end.
09:32This is his legacy, this is all the magic that accompanies him.
09:39In 1908, marred by ostracism for the contrariety of football faith to foreigners,
09:47and for the latest corporate affairs that had led to the foundation of Inter,
09:51Herbert played his last game with Milan on April 12, 1908.
09:57Leaving Milan, Kielpin remained for some time near the football he could not do without,
10:03coaching the boys of Enotria, a minor Milanese team.
10:07But health betrayed him and Herbert Kielpin disappeared prematurely on October 22, 1916.
10:15The place of the foundation, of the respect for the founder,
10:19was often occupied also by toasting every midnight of December 16 in the center of Milan,
10:25the historic Rossonero, Stefano Pozzoni.
10:28Herbert Kielpin represents one of the most selfless pioneers of Italian football,
10:32of which he widely imposed the elementary rules, both in the game and in the discipline of training.
10:37For Milan he represents the founding father of his first city sports company,
10:42born precisely for the game of football,
10:44which will immediately collect its first successes in the national field,
10:48and then become, in its 125 years of history,
10:51one of the most glorious and titled football companies in the world.