Virtus Verona FC - Stadio Comunale Gavagnin-Nocini

Virtus Verona’s home ground, the Stadio Comunale Gavagnin‑Nocini, is a modest municipal sports centre on the eastern side of Verona that has been carefully upgraded in stages to keep pace with the club’s improbable rise from neighbourhood football to Serie C.

Origins: a multi‑sport corner of Verona

The ground Virtus now call home forms part of the Centro Sportivo Mario Gavagnin–Sinibaldo Nocini, a municipal sports complex in the Borgo Venezia / Montorio area of Verona. The complex has long been used for different codes: its main rugby pitch, with a 600‑seat stand, housed Verona Rugby until their move to the new Payanini Center in 2018, after which other rugby clubs such as Scaligera Rugby took over. Alongside this sat the football pitch that would become the stage for Virtus Verona FC’s rise, reflecting a typical Italian model where one municipal hub serves several sports and clubs.

For many years the football field here was a lower‑profile venue compared with Verona’s better‑known stadiums – particularly the Bentegodi, home of Hellas Verona and Chievo – and was used for local and regional football rather than the professional game. Virtus, originally a small neighbourhood club founded in 1921, slotted naturally into this context, playing in the lower tiers and using the Gavagnin‑Nocini field as a practical, community‑level home base.

First major upgrade: 2016 and the covered main stand

The transformation from simple municipal pitch to a more recognisable non‑league ground began in 2016. In that year, the football field at the Gavagnin‑Nocini complex underwent a first significant redevelopment, with the construction of a new covered main stand. This stand, running along one side of the pitch, was designed to accommodate 980 spectators seated, bringing the facility into line with more demanding federation standards and making it a viable home for a club aiming to climb the pyramid.

The addition of a covered tribuna fundamentally changed the ground’s feel. It gave Virtus a proper focal point for home support and provided the minimum comfort and safety provisions for higher‑level matches, while still retaining the intimate, open layout of a small municipal stadium. At this point, capacity figures quoted by different sources tended to focus on seated numbers – often around 1,200 – reflecting how the stand dominated perceptions of the venue.

Promotion pressure and 2018 expansion for Serie C

The next key turning point came with Virtus Verona’s move into professional football. After climbing through Serie D, Virtus earned promotion to Serie C, forcing the club and municipality to upgrade the ground again to meet the stricter requirements of Italy’s third tier. In 2018 a further expansion was carried out: a new “curva” – a separate section specifically for away supporters – was built with space for around 500 spectators.

This addition pushed the overall capacity of the football ground to about 1,500, combining the 980‑seat main stand with the new away sector and remaining standing areas. While some databases still list capacities between roughly 1,200 and 1,500 depending on how they treat seated versus total figures, the post‑2018 layout is widely described as a 1,500‑capacity venue for Virtus Verona’s home matches. These upgrades were very specifically timed “in vista della partecipazione della Virtus alla Serie C” – aimed at ensuring the club could host professional matches in its own neighbourhood rather than decamping permanently to the larger Bentegodi.

Today’s matchday: Stadio Comunale Gavagnin‑Nocini

In its current form, the Stadio Comunale Gavagnin‑Nocini presents as a compact, almost minimalist Serie C ground. The main covered stand provides nearly all the seated accommodation, with red‑and‑blue touches echoing Virtus colours, while additional terracing and the away curva complete the bowl. The stadium sits at Via Montorio 112, on Verona’s eastern side, a short distance from the city centre but firmly rooted in a more residential quarter than the Bentegodi’s larger, western‑side setting.

Most statistical and betting sites list the stadium with a functional capacity in the 1,200–1,500 range and note it as Virtus Verona’s official home ground in Serie C Group A. A typical matchday sees a few hundred spectators – average crowds are reported in the low hundreds – which the ground accommodates comfortably, keeping supporters close to the pitch and maintaining a distinct “small club in a big football city” atmosphere. The playing surface is natural grass, and despite the modest infrastructure, the ground meets professional standards thanks to the targeted upgrades of 2016 and 2018.

Context in the Verona football landscape

The Gavagnin‑Nocini’s story makes most sense when set alongside Verona’s other stadiums. The Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi, originally built in the 1960s and extensively redeveloped for the 1990 World Cup, remains the city’s main arena, serving Hellas Verona and historically Chievo with a capacity well above 30,000. In contrast, Virtus Verona have deliberately stayed in their smaller eastern base, turning a multi‑sport municipal centre into a tailored, if tiny, professional ground.

That choice underlines the club’s identity. Led for decades by president‑coach Luigi Fresco, Virtus position themselves as a community‑anchored, alternative Verona side, and the Gavagnin‑Nocini reflects that: pragmatic, local, and scaled precisely to their following and ambitions. Rather than chasing a share of the Bentegodi, Virtus have invested in incremental changes to their own corner of the city – first a covered stand, then a curva – so that today they can host Serie C football at a ground that still feels unmistakably theirs.