Venezia FC

As the Roman Empire fell and the barbarians stormed into Italy, the local people fled. To the mountains, into the hills – and into the seas. Literally. Into the sea. At what is today Venice, refugees fled with their belongings into the shallow marshlands off the coast – the barbarians – keen to get down to Rome and loot the good stuff – watched with bemusement and let them go. Out in the marshes, these settlers put down roots – well – logs, to be precise. By ramming logs deep into the sea floor they created platforms on which they could build. Over time, these foundations have, far from rotting away, petrified – absorbed so much water that they have turned into solid rock. It is upon these manmade foundations that the city sprang.

Let’s fast forward a bit… to a time when this city had turned from a soggy backwater to a European powerhouse.

During the 4th Crusade, as the assault on Constantinople stalled and hesitation gripped the fleet, many of the galleys carrying reinforcements lingered in the safety of the waters. Amidst this uncertainty, the blind and 92-year-old Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, defied age, fear, and reason. Clad in full armour, he commanded his galley to surge ahead alone, landing boldly on the beach beneath the walls of the greatest city in Christendom. At his side flew the banner of St Mark. His audacious act of leadership and defiance stirred the hearts of the wavering Crusaders—shaming them into action and igniting the charge that would ultimately breach the city’s defences.

I've been studying and teaching History, properly, for more than twenty years now. You'd think I'd have a grasp of most of it, right? Wrong.

Even now, I'm still uncovering incredible civilisations, people, and stories I’d never even come close to discovering before. One such story is that of Venice and their incredible trading Empire of the Middle Ages. This led me to seek out their football team—and their badge.

And wow. What a story we have here.

So, let's leave the cold, rain-soaked terraces of East Anglian non-league football for a moment or two, and transport ourselves to the open-air, 11,500-seater stadium of Pier Luigi Penzo, at the very end of one of Venice's micro-islands, nestled inside the Aegean lagoon that

call home.

The badge is a straightforward V. V for Venezia. Simple. But embedded in this V is a lion. A lion with wings.

The V badge has only been around for just over a year or two. The older one features the lion more vividly, so I've posted that image too.

After the capture of Constantinople, Venice could demand what it liked. It could have had gold, territory, titles... and while it took a few of those things, it really only demanded one thing—a trade deal. A Venetian-run system of free trade across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. And it got it. Known as the Stato da Mar, these seas became Venice's highways. Goods from the Far East embarked in Ukraine and sailed to North Africa. Goods from the Middle East embarked at Palestine and travelled to Northern Europe. All on Venetian ships. A bit like modern Britain, Venice was poor in natural resources but boasted a large coastline and an enterprising people. It traded—or it died. They sought to engage, expand, and control European trade—not cripple it. That’s how they took back control. Not with hate-filled slogans, but with ships.

At its height, it ran an incredibly efficient system of trade and government. Local officials were salaried and banned from conducting their own trade or employing family members—an anti-corruption measure British and American politics could benefit from today. Their dockyards built the first assembly lines—Venice could produce one completed galley every 24 hours. How long would it take a modern dockyard?

Another lesson we could learn today was one of tolerance and pragmatism. The Venetians traded with everyone and anyone: Turks, Arabs, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Protestants, Orthodox, and Catholic. At a time when other European cities were busy murdering their Jewish residents, the Venetians gifted them an island to set up shop and protected them in law. If you could help, if you had something to offer—you were in.

Today that glory has gone. Like much of Europe, only the shell remains—a tourist trap, a theme park of former power, frequented by Chinese and Arab tourists. It remains a sacred place for fashion, style, and film festivals. But in reality, its lifeblood is the sale of fridge magnets to the day-trippers disgorged onto its streets each day by mammoth, coastline-eroding and water-polluting cruise ships.

But baked into the buildings, and buried beneath the slowly sinking courtyards, lies a spirit that once monopolised global trade, engineered the defeat of the world’s greatest powers, and accumulated wealth and culture that far outstripped its humble origins as a desperate refuge for the poor. The Venetians will always find a way.

And St Mark will roar again.