WELL IT STARTED WITH THE HONEST ENGLISH

December 16th 1899, Herbert Kilpin (from Nottingham) and Alfred Edwards (below) from Bridgnorth.......

formed the Milan Cricket and Football Club which became known as AC Milan and is remarkable for not being known as Milano, the Italian way of addressing the city.

Herbert Kilpin oversaw the beginning of the club's success and he maintained the name of Milan rather than Milano, which hinted of the Fascist regime. Known as Associazione Calcio Milan, they won their first title in 1901 and again in 1906 and 1907. In 1908 the club split when there was a disagreement over foreign signings and another Milan club was founded-FC Internazionale Milano. This led to a lull in AC's success until 1950-1 when ironically they benefited from three swedish signings, Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl and Nils Liedholm.
This led to a period of further success for AC Milan including winning the Scudetto, the Italian name for winning the championship in the top flight. Titles came along in 1951,1955, 57, 59, 62 and this led to the European Cup win in 1963 beating the rising club of Benfica. Milan won the ECup again in 1969 beating Ajax.
In 1980 the club was named in the infamous Totonero match fixing scandal (money on results) and was relegated to Serie B for the first time. They won promotion back to Serie A immediately. They were then relegated in 1982 and won promotion again a year later.
In stepped Berlusconi with a bunch of lira and the club hasn't looked back since! In came Gullit, Van Basten and Rijkaard who complemented locals Baresi, Maldini, Donadoni and Costacurta.....that was just 7 of the side!