World Cup stunning moments: the Conte Verde's trip to Uruguay in 1930

May 10, 2018

The Scottish-built boat shuttled Jules Rimet, European teams and Brazil to 1930 World Cup, which ended in a brutal first final

In April 1923 a new boat sailed out of the shipyards of William Beardmore & Co in Dalmuir, near Glasgow, destined for history. “Italian craftsmen and artists were brought specifically from Florence to carry out the decoration of the first-class saloons,” reported the Times. “The wall of the main staircase bears a huge painting by Cavalieri; the library is in the Tuscan renaissance style, with stained-glass windows and ceiling paintings; and the other public rooms are equally ornate. The wealth of artistic detail everywhere recalls the old-time splendour of an Italian palace.” The boat was built for the Genoese Lloyd Sabaudo line and named the Conte Verde, after Amadeus VI, a 14th-century Count of Savoy.

The Conte Verde was destined to shuttle between Europe and either South America or Asia, carrying the Chinese Olympic team to Berlin in 1936 and thousands of refugees from Nazi persecution in the opposite direction over the following years, and played a small but noteworthy role in the second world war. It was moored in Shanghai when in September 1943 news broke of Italy’s surrender to Allied forces, and its crew were ordered to destroy it rather than risk it falling into Japanese hands. It was sunk in the most inconvenient location possible, blocking all traffic from entering or leaving the naval yard where the Japanese were busy repairing various war craft. It took three months to move it, and on the day it was finally raised an Allied bomber turned up and sank it again. It was another six months before it was back afloat, whereupon the Japanese salvaged it, renamed it Kotobuki Maru and used it to move troops until it was bombed, definitively this time, in July 1945.

Tags: Football Sport World Cup