Halifax Wanderers kick off season at home Saturday

The Halifax Wanderers Football Club will play their first home game May 4 at the Wanderers Grounds field in downtown Halifax.

The match against Hamilton's Forge FC will be a good indicator of how the Wanderers will fare this season, says Sports & Entertainment Atlantic owner Derek Martin.

“When you build a team from scratch, you really don't have a lot ot go on,” Martin says. “I think today will be a great test for us.”

The Wanderers played their first away game last weekend, losing 1-0 to Victoria, B.C's Pacific FC team.

The sold out home game will draw about 6,000 people to the new stadium.

“We're excited and looking forward to welcoming a bunch of people down to the grounds today and having a great game,” Martin tells NEWS 95.7's The Todd Veinotte Show.

The grounds, located between Citadel Hill and the Public Gardens, have seen several upgrades over the past few years.

“We were able to work with the city to transform the grass into a quality that would be able to host professional soccer, and we've managed to build up a stadium around the pitch,” Martin adds.

Martin says the new team has been overwhlemed with support from Haligonians.

“A lot of them are blown away by the amount of support they're getting from our fans,” he says. “They're feeling the love here in the city, and they feel now a responsibility to return it by making sure they perform well.”

The Wanderers will play 28 games this season for the Canadian Premier League, of which 14 will be home games.

But there's also a chance to play more games during the Major League Soccer (MLS) season.

“We're eligible as a professional team in Canada to play in the Canadian Soccer Association's Canadian championship,” Martin says. “You can play against teams from other leagues.”

Martin hopes that having a local CPL team will inspire more young Nova Scotians to play the sport. The Wanderers have so far signed one local player, Fall River's Scott Firth.

“If we can help develop four or five more players of Scott's quality, then that'll be one of the success factors that we'll gauge ourself by,” he says.

The Wanderers' next game will take place on Wednesday May 22. Martin encourages everyone to buy tickets online, and to check out the merch store at the Halifax Shopping Centre.

“We've got about 800 tickets available for every game as single match tickets,” he says. “A lot of those have sold, but we encourage people to get in there and experience what a game at the Wanderers Grounds is all about.”