A new season is underway for young footballers in Nanaimo, ahead of games starting up in August and September. (Heather Buerk)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

ready for kickoff

Registration strong ahead of new Football Nanaimo season

Jul 28, 2025 | 2:27 PM

NANAIMO — A new football season is well underway for the region’s youth players.

Following in the footsteps of the BCFC’s VI Raiders, who opened their season on July 19, players in multiple age-based divisions with Football Nanaimo are running practices in preparation for games in August and September.

Football Nanaimo president Wanda Currie said their registration numbers this season are very strong with kids aged eight to 18 taking part.

“We’re looking about the same as most years, except for in our atom age group, we still are a little bit behind there, but that’s kind of normal. It’s usually our last age group to fill up. We have right now about 175 kids (across all divisions).”

In addition to seeking more participation in the atom age group, Currie said they’re a couple of kids short in the peewee, bantam and midget levels.

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Teams play around eight to 10 games per season, depending on their level and the number of other teams in the area.

In Nanaimo, most of the action takes place at Mary Bennett Pioneer Park in the city’s north end.

“As the season progresses, I am always looking for extra fields, because our big boys are definitely putting a lot of wear and tear on the field. Right now, we’re actually travelling around a bit, and we’re at Caledonia, the (John) Barsby Turf Field, [q’unq’inuqwstuxw] field, and Pioneer, so we’re kind of all over the place,” said Currie.

It’s hoped this season will follow in the footsteps of others, and see local squads at the top of the standings come the end of the season.

“Almost all of our age groups rank pretty high. We have everywhere from atom, all the way up to midget. Our JV team this year is a fresh team so we’ll see how that goes, but I think that we are going to be looking good on the field at every age level.”

Registration is still open through the Football Nanaimo website, with Currie saying they will make the situation work for anyone interested.

Included in the fee is all the required equipment, except for cleats.

“We just want to get people involved in loving the game. We even have kids join at 18 years old that have never played before and they come out and enjoy a season.”

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