In the 33rd minute of a World Cup match against Poland, Darlington-born Giuseppe Wilson won his third, and final, cap for Italy.
Giuseppe, the captain of Lazio whom he had helped to their first Serie A league title, came on as a substitute to play alongside such legendary Azzurri names as Dino Zoff and Fabio Capello. Yet he’d been born Joseph Wilson on 27 October 1945, in Arnold Road. His father, Dennis, who worked at Darlington Forge, had been on wartime service in Italy where he had met Lina d’Francesca. They had returned to Darlington and married, but Lina couldn’t settle in the Darlington winters, so with the baby six months old, they started anew in Italy.
Joseph interrupted his law studies at university to do fifteen months’ national service so he could claim Italian citizenship, and he changed his name to Giuseppe. He joined Internapoli and then Lazio in 1969, for whom he made a record 324 appearances at left back, missing only 6 games in 11 years, and scoring 6 goals.
Nicknamed ‘Pino’, he made his international debut in a friendly before the 1974 World Cup in which he made two substitute appearances, the last of which was against Poland. However, Italy lost 2–1 and were eliminated amid great Italian angst. Giuseppe’s international career was over.
(The Northern Echo 1992 and FIFA database)