Stadio Giovanni Mari

Stadio Giovanni Mari is a multi-use stadium in Legnano, Italy. It is currently used mostly for football matches and is the home ground of A.C. Legnano. The stadium holds 5,000 people. It is also used for the horse race of Palio di Legnano.

History

The plant, built near the plants of the engineering company Franco Tosi inspired by similar plants built in England, was inaugurated on 2 October 1921 with a ceremony that foresaw an athletics event organized by the Legnano Gymnastics which lasted from 8.30 am to 5 pm.

After this event a football match was held between the A.C. Legnano and Inter, valid for the 1921–22 Prima Divisione (CCI), which ended with the result of 6-0 for the Legnanesi. Originally the sports facility was called "the city stadium in via Pisacane", from the name of the street in which it is located.

Before the inauguration of the stadium, the A.C. Legnano played home games on a soccer field in via Lodi, built at the expense of Franco Tosi and the industrialist Antonio Bernocchi. The Via Lodi field, after the construction of the Via Pisacane stadium, continued to be used by the A.C. Legnano as a competition field for the youth sector and as a training ground, a place of use that remained in use until the end of the 1990s century. Later the via Lodi camp was transformed into a municipal boules alley.

From 1937 to the stadium of via Pisacane is organized annually, on the last Sunday of May, the horse race of the palio di Legnano. The first edition of the palio horse race in Legnano (1935) was instead played at the former Brusadelli camp, a facility built as a sports center for the dope after-work of the Cotonificio Dell'Acqua and later named after Pino Cozzi, historic president of the Unione Sportiva Legnanese. The stadium in Via Pisacane, before the horse race, is the scene of the last phase of the historical parade as well as the preparatory events for the horse race, such as the honors to the Carroccio and the charge of the figurants who impersonate the Com