Hellas Verona FC

Origins and early history

Founded in 1903 by a group of students at Liceo "Scipione Maffei", the club was named Hellas (the Greek word for Greece), at the request of a professor of classics. At a time in which football was played seriously only in the larger cities of northwestern Italy, most of Verona was indifferent to the growing sport. However, when in 1906 two city teams chose the city's Roman amphitheatre as a venue to showcase the game, crowd enthusiasm and media interest began to rise. During these first few years, Hellas was one of three or four area teams playing at a municipal level while fighting against city rivals Bentegodi to become the city's premier football outfit. By the 1907–08 season, Hellas was playing against regional teams, and an intense rivalry with Vicenza that has lasted to this day was born.

From 1898 to 1926, Italian football was organised into regional groups. In this period, Hellas was one of the founding teams of the early league and often among its top final contenders. In 1911, the city helped Hellas replace the early, gritty football fields with a proper venue. This allowed the team to take part in its first regional tournament, which until 1926, was the qualifying stage for the national title. In 1919, following a return to activity after a four-year suspension of all football competition in Italy during World War I, the team merged with city rival Verona and changed its name to Hellas Verona. Between 1926 and 1929, the elite…

Serie A Winners (1): 1984–85 Serie B Winners (3): 1956–57, 1981–82, 1998–99