Notes from Verona: Verona’s Shame

A look back on events surrounding Napoli's visit to the Bentegodi

The rivalry between Verona and Napoli is one of the fiercest in the Italian footballing calendar. The display of an offensive banner on the eve of the match and racist chanting inside the stadium once again brought the game into disrepute as Rick Hough explains.

When you’re caught up in the thrill of matchday it can be difficult to keep up with what’s going on around the periphery of the game itself. That was certainly the case last Sunday afternoon at the Bentegodi. I was determined to enjoy the game as Verona hosted Napoli, and wasn’t going to let the moronic behaviour of a few idiots detract me. 

Sunday afternoon kick-offs are a rare breed these days, with the dispersal of fixtures across the weekend for the benefit of a global TV audience. In Verona, spring had broken and in the Poltrone Est we could look forward to being bathed in warm sunshine for the entire afternoon. Both my kids would be in attendance, something that’s happened only once before, as well as an old friend returning to the city who I hadn’t seen for nearly two years. 

As I discussed on the Forza Napoli Podcast earlier that week, the rivalry between the two sets of fans is fierce. That sometimes spills over into something much worse, with a succession of violent and offensive incidents over the years, the most recent of which was in November 2017, when forty Neapolitan ultras attacked a city centre bar armed with bats and knives.