Internazionale Dowlais: Dai Astley’s journey from Merthyr to Milan

Iwan Williams

David ‘Dai’ Astley was born in Dowlais in 1909. A coal miner who began his career with Dowlais Welfare, he was a natural goalscorer, and scored regularly for every club he represented: Merthyr Town (3 goals in 5 games); Charlton Athletic (27 in 96); Aston Villa (92 in 165); Derby County (45 in 93); Blackpool (6 in 20) and Metz (2 in 10).

He was prolific at international level too, scoring an incredible 12 goals in 13 Cymru games between 1931 and 1939, and winning the British Home Championship outright on three occasions.

The post-war move to Metz was unique, as Astley became one of the earliest Cymru players to move abroad (following George Green’s pre-war time with Espanyol). The move to France in 1946/47 helped pave the way to Italy, as Astley became Inter Milan manager in 1948/49 at the age of 39.

Italian giants

So how did a Dowlais boy end up as a young manager at one of the giants of Italian football, a club with 20 Scudetto (Serie A) titles and 3 European Cups/Champions League nowadays, years before Helenio Herrera, Giovanni Trappattoni, Roy Hodgson, Roberto Mancini, José Mourinho and Simone Inzaghi?

Astley was recommended to Inter by his Metz manager, the Englishman Edward ‘Ted’ Magner. Denmark manager in 1939, Magner persuaded Inter to take a gamble on a young Welshman with no managerial or Italian football experience. Backed by chairman Carlo Masseroni, Astley’s managerial period at Inter began on 23rd May 1948 following the two month tenure of Carlo Carcano, who took over from club and Italy legend Giuseppe Meazza. It was an excellent start as Inter beat Vicenza 2-0. Astley oversaw the final seven games of the 1947/48 season as Inter finished 12th.

Ahead of the 1948/49 season, the Lost Boyos article on Astley (2012) says that “Optimism was high as the reign of the new ‘Mister’ began, although this had more to do with the arrival of new signings”. Between September and November, Astley’s Inter beat Sampdoria, city rivals AC Milan and Juventus. They beat Novara 5-0 and thrashed Bari 9-1 on 31st October.

Inter Milan’s win against AC in October 1948

However, Inter lost away to league champions Torino 4-2 on 11th December 1948. They recovered with resounding 7-1 and 4-0 wins over Fiorentina and Sampdoria in January 1949, but lost to Triestina and Palermo.

Following the Palermo defeat on 29th January, Astley’s Inter finished the season unbeaten. Highlights included wins at Modena, Livorno and Padova, and a 4-0 home win against Atalanta. The second Milan derby of the season finished 4-4, whilst the home game against Torino ended 0-0 on 29th April, only days before the darkest day in Torino’s history. Astley’s final league game ended with a 2-0 win at Fiorentina on 4th June 1949.

Tragedy

Inter finished the 1948/49 season in second place on 55pts, with an impressive record of 22 wins, 11 draws and 5 defeats backed by 85 goals. Torino, who finished on 60pts, were declared Serie A champions on 6th May 1949, two days after the Superga tragedy, when an aeroplane crashed outside Turin and killed the entire Torino squad. ‘Grande Torino’ set the standard in the post-war period, having won the three previous Serie A titles.

The Superga tragedy set a dark cloud over Italian football for a long time, and stays with Torino to this day. Playing out the remainder of the league games was no doubt incredibly challenging for Astley’s Inter and the other Serie A clubs, with Torino’s reserve team playing their remaining four games.

It is not known if Astley was a fluent Italian speaker. He presided over a largely Italian squad, with the exception of Hungarian Istvan Nyers and Romanian Nicolae Simatoc. Enzo Bearzot, who would go on to manage Italy to World Cup success in 1982, was in the squad, as was Amedeo Amadei and Benito Lorenzi. Both Nyers and Lorenzi feature in the top ten greatest Inter goalscorers list. Nyers finished the 1948/49 season as Serie A top goalscorer with 26 goals, with Amadei second on 22 goals.

Astley arrived in Milan at a difficult and uncertain time for Italy. Only three years after the death of Benito Mussolini and the end of the Second World War, general elections were held on 18th April 1948 to elect the first Parliament of the Italian Republic.

CIA

The election, heavily influenced by the CIA as the Cold War took shape, resulted in the continuation of Alcide De Gasperi as Prime Minister of a new coalition government led by the Christian Democrats.

An assassination attempt on the Communist Party leader Palmiro Togliatti in July 1948 resulted in strike action. Italian industries and agriculture were devastated by the war. Unemployment was rife, with over two million returning soldiers looking for work, and the cost of living increased. It would take years for the Italian economy to recover and grow.

Milan, a bustling city of 1.8 million people, was slowly undertaking a large-scale reconstruction project, with around a third of its buildings destroyed by wartime bombs and fire.

Having been on opposing sides of the war only a few years before, rekindling friendships and focusing on peace and reconciliation would have been high on the Inter hierarchy priority list upon Astley’s appointment. Football provided much needed respite for many in the turbulent post-war period.

Despite an excellent season as Serie A runners-up, Astley was replaced by Giulio Cappelli on 1st July 1949. Cappelli was Inter’s sporting director whilst Astley was manager, and Cappelli’s involvement in coaching and team selection may have stifled Astley.

La Stampa reported in November 1948 that “an armistice” had been reached “but the theoretical differences have remained” between the two. Cappelli only survived the 1949/50 season. Football owners demanded instant success; little has changed.

Astley’s overall record with Inter was 44 games, winning 25, drawing 11 and losing 8. With an eye-catching CV for a young manager, he went on to manage Genoa in 1949/50 (still occasionally referred to as “inglese” – English – in the media), before leaving Italy for Sweden.

Astley managed Djurgårdens of Stockholm between 1950 and 1954, and Sandvikens IF between 1955 and 1957. A year later, Cymru would play their opening match at Sandviken against Hungary in the 1958 FIFA World Cup.

Cymru connections in Italian football run deep. Cymru men have played in Florence (1965), Rome (1969 and 2021), Brescia (1988, a rare win), Terni (1996), Bologna (1999) and Milan (2003), whilst Cymru women have played in Cesena (2019). John Charles arrived at Juventus in 1957, and would be followed years later by Ian Rush and Aaron Ramsey.

Craig Davies played once for Hellas Verona, whilst Ethan Ampadu had spells at Venezia and Spezia. Cymru internationals Donato and Daniel Nardiello, Gabriele Biancheri and Sharla Passariello may well have Italian roots.

John Toshack, synonymous with Spanish football, managed Catania in 2002/03, whilst Osian Roberts, now Como’s head of development, acted as head coach for the 2023/24 season and led them to promotion from Serie B. Napoli have a shared history with Bangor and Swansea, Roma with Wrexham and more recently, Fiorentina with TNS. Then there’s CPD Bryncoch’s legendary trip during Italia 90.

But it all began with Dai Astley. Before he died at the age of 80 in 1989, it was fitting that Astley witnessed his hometown team, Merthyr Tydfil, beating another Italian team in black and blue, Atalanta, in the UEFA Cup Winners Cup in 1987.

As stated in ‘Sons of Cambria’ (2021), in his later years he was landlord at the White Horse in Ramsgate.

What stories he could tell as player and manager. Few landlords can claim they managed Inter Milan, the Nerazzurri. A gifted footballer and a pioneer who ventured far from home and achieved incredible things in Italy at a difficult time.

And when Osian Roberts visits the San Siro before Christmas with Como, he’ll be visiting a place where another Welshman led the mighty Inter Milan 75 years ago.