L.R. Vicenza

Vicenza, founded in 1902 by a group of citizens led by Professor Tito Buy, headmaster of the Lioy High School, and by physical education teacher Antonio Libero Scarpa, it is one of the oldest football clubs in Italy. The formation of the first board of directors took place on 9 March 1902, while the competitive debut took place on 18 May 1903 in a friendly match valid for the Provincial Championship for Schools.

The professional debut dates back to the 1910–11 season: ACIVI (as Vicenza was called for its first fifty years, acronym of Associazione del Calcio in Vicenza) inaugurated its new Borgo Casale ground on 12 February 1911 with a great victory over Bologna and in March finished the Veneto-Emilia round with a full score, qualifying for the final for the title. However, it had to succumb, both away and at home, to Pro Vercelli which was in its golden years.

Vicenza challenged Pro Vercelli in the double final of the 1910–1911 First Category championship.

In the years before the First World War it took part to several national finals of northern Italy, which were played between the winners of the regional groups. Vicenza thus met Bologna, Juventus, Milan and Inter several times, establishing itself among the best Italian teams.

Vicenza began in the First Category in the 1920s competing in various regional groups. In 1921–22 it joined the schism of the great teams, going to play in the C.C.I. championship: it finished last in group A, a result that condemned it to having to play and win the inter-divisional qualifiers against teams from the Second Division to escape relegation. When the Compromesso Colombo was implemented, it faced the inter-divisional qualification round which it lost against Derthona, thus leaving the top national division. In the 1924–25 season Vicenza won the elimination round of the Second Division after play-offs with Udinese and Olympia Fiume, but was then disqualified and downgraded to last place due to the irregular positions of the Hungarians Horváth and Molnár; however, it was not relegated because thanks to the Italian Football Federation. Unprepared for the transformations that were launching Italian football towards professionalism, it was overwhelmed by the various tournament restructurings, leading to the 1929 plummeting to the fourth level of the national football pyramid.

Romeo Menti

The 1930s were years of redemption for the biancorossi, after a decade to forget. In 1932–1933 the team was promoted to Serie B, where it remained for two seasons, while trying again and again to gain promotion to Serie A. In that period the "biancorossi" churned out talents of the calibre of the Umberto brothers and above all Romeo Menti, captain "Neno" Rossi, Bruno Camolese, Luigi Chiodi, Giovanni Costa, and the star Piero Spinato, the club's top scorer to this day. In the 1939–1940 season promotion to Serie B arrived with a clear advantage over the second team. On 8 September 1935 a new stadium along the Bacchiglione river had been inaugurated, leaving the Borgo Casale pitch, the inaugural match was against the Hungarian team Soroksár with a 16-year-old Romeo Menti making his professional debut. After his death during the 1949 Superga air disaster, the stadium in Vicenza would be named in his honor.

At the beginning of the 1940s Vicenza conquered the top national division, thanks also to a midfield that went down in history as one of the best of the era formed by: Osvaldo Fattori (later at Inter), Alfonso Santagiuliana (who also played for Grande Torino) and Luigi Abeni (whose career was cut short by illness).

Serie A 1942–1943: the Vicenza eleven in Juventus-Vicenza 2–6

Vicenza's Serie A 1942–1943 season ended with a historic escape from relegation, won on the last day by defeating Juventus 6–2 in Turin on Easter Sunday 1943. After 8 September they took part in the Veneto round of the 1944 War championship, but renounced the national finals. After the Second World War, Vicenza returned to play in Serie A, after the mixed championship of 1946. In the 1946–1947 Serie A, when the single-round championship returned, Vicenza surprisingly placed fifth (the team's best scorer was Bruno Quaresima from Vicenza); the following year, however, the team finished last (the only time in the history that Vicenza ended at the bottom of the table) and was relegated. In 1949 Vicenza came close to an immediate return to Serie A, but it slipped away by one point. This was followed by several seasons in Serie B in which it placed in mid-table, and which were characterised by economic problems.

Lanerossi Vicenza

On 26 June 1953 an event occurred that would change the history of the Vicenza club for many decades: the old ACIVI was bought by the Schio-based wool producing giant, Lanerossi, founded in the 19th century by Alessandro Rossi. This was not the first case of football sponsorship in Italy, which was still forbidden at the time, but instead a so-called coupling, i.e. a real takeover: the football club became a rib of the textile company, even carrying its name and symbol – the R – on its shirts (sponsorship would only be allowed in the early 1980s). The logo remained on the red and white shirts until the 1988–1989 season, but has made a return since the 2000s as it has become a de facto symbol of the Vicenza football club even following the company's departure.

Luís Vinício and Giulio Savoini, were Lanerossi's flag-bearers in the early 50s two players who would go down in history as some of the club's best.