Cavalry Football Club, is a Canadian professional soccer club based in the

Calgary metropolitan region The Calgary Metropolitan Region (CMR), also commonly referred to as the Calgary Region, is a conglomeration of municipalities centred on Calgary, the largest city in Alberta. With the Government of Alberta's establishment of the Calgary Metropo ...

of Alberta. The club competes at the top of the Canadian soccer league system in the

Canadian Premier League The Canadian Premier League (CPL or CanPL; french: Première ligue canadienne, links=no) is a professional men's Association football, soccer league in Canada. At the top of the Canadian soccer league system, it is the country's primary nationa ...

, and plays their home matches at ATCO Field on the grounds of Spruce Meadows in

Foothills County Foothills County is a municipal district in southern Alberta, Canada adjacent to the south side of Calgary in Census Division No. 6. Despite sharing a common border with the City of Calgary, it does not form part of the Calgary census metropol ...

. The team is managed by

Tommy Wheeldon Jr. Thomas Wheeldon Jr. (born 3 May 1979) is an English former professional footballer and current head coach of Cavalry FC in the Canadian Premier League. Playing career Wheeldon began his playing career in England with Swindon Town before movi ...

and owned by Spruce Meadows Sports & Entertainment.

History

On May 5, 2018,

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, maki ...

was one of four cities accepted by the

Canadian Soccer Association The Canadian Soccer Association (Canada Soccer) is the governing body of soccer in Canada. It is a national organization that oversees the Canadian men's and women's national teams for international play, as well as the respective junior sides ...

for professional club membership. Cavalry FC was announced on May 17, 2018, as the second team to officially join the

. Spruce Meadows Sports & Entertainment Group CEO

Linda Southern-Heathcott Linda Southern-Heathcott (born 3 January 1963) is a Canadian equestrian. She competed in two events at the 1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly ...

and COO Ian Allison were joined by league commissioner David Clanachan and league president Paul Beirne to unveil the team. The club's name, crest and colours were all revealed at the event at Spruce Meadows, while

was announced as head coach and general manager. Plans to renovate existing facilities at Spruce Meadows, resulting in a

soccer-specific stadium Soccer-specific stadium is a term used mainly in the United States and Canada to refer to a sports stadium either purpose-built or fundamentally redesigned for soccer and whose primary function is to host soccer matches, as opposed to a multi-p ...

with a capacity of at least 5,000 seats, were also revealed. On June 26, 2019, Cavalry FC qualified for the

2019 Canadian Premier League Championship The 2019 Canadian Premier League Finals determined the winner of the Canadian Premier League's inaugural 2019 season. It featured Cavalry FC of Calgary, Alberta, and Forge FC of Hamilton, Ontario, and was the culmination of a rivalry that had de ...

by winning the inaugural CPL Spring season. The following month the Cavs became the first CPL club to defeat a

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Cana ...

club in the

Canadian Championship The Canadian Championship (french: Championnat canadien) is an annual soccer tournament contested by premier Canadian professional teams. The winner is awarded the Voyageurs Cup and Canada's berth in the CONCACAF Champions League. It is contes ...

by upsetting

Vancouver Whitecaps FC Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club is a Canadian professional soccer team based in Vancouver. They compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member club of the league's Western Conference. The MLS iteration of the club was established on Marc ...

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

over two-legs. HFX Wanderers FC vs

Goalkeeper Marco Carducci became the first CPL player called up to the

Canada men's national soccer team The Canada men's national soccer team (french: Équipe du Canada de soccer masculin) represents Canada in international soccer competitions since 1924. They are overseen by the Canadian Soccer Association, the governing body for soccer in Ca ...

when, on August 28, 2019, he was requested for a pair of Nations League A matches against Cuba.

Colours and crest

The team's crest was designed by Jon Rogers. The crest features a chevron in homage to the

Lord Strathcona's Horse Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians) (LdSH C is a regular armoured regiment of the Canadian Army and is Canada’s only tank regiment. Currently based in Edmonton, Alberta, the regiment is part of 3rd Canadian Division's 1 Canadian Mechaniz ...

armoured regiment, Alberta Foothills and

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

, and a football to represent the past and future of Calgary as a sporting city. The club's colours are green, red and black (branded by the club as "army green," "Calgary red," and "black on black"). These colours symbolize the green of Calgary's nature and Spruce Meadows, and the red and black of other Calgary sports teams and the flag of Lord Strathcona's Horse.

Stadium

Cavalry FC play at ATCO Field, a 6,000-seat stadium located at Spruce Meadows, at the 'Meadows on the Green' equestrian ring. The stadium is modular to allow for future growth and uses natural grass. Free shuttles bring fans to the stadium from the Somerset–Bridlewood

CTrain CTrain (previously branded C-Train) is a light rail rapid transit system in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Most of the network functions as a light metro, though in the free-fare zone that runs through the downtown core the Red and Blue lines opera ...

station. In September 2019, Spruce Meadows presented a new area plan to

, that includes a 12,000 seat soccer-specific stadium on the grounds that would replace ATCO Field over the next 30 years.

Club culture

Supporters

Cavalry FC are supported by the Foot Soldiers, a supporters group that originally formed in 2015 to support

USL League Two USL League Two (USL2), formerly the Premier Development League (PDL), is a semi-professional developmental soccer league sponsored by United Soccer Leagues in the United States and Canada, forming part of the United States soccer league sy ...

club Calgary Foothills and the Calgary Foothills UWS team.

Rivalries

Al Classico Forge FC vs Cavalry FC

The

Al Classico AL, Al, Ål or al may stand for: Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Al (''Aladdin'') or Aladdin, the main character in Disney's ''Aladdin'' media * Al (''EastEnders''), a minor character in the British soap opera * Al (''Fullmetal ...

exists with

FC Edmonton FC Edmonton was a Canadian professional Association football, soccer club based in Edmonton, Alberta. The club was founded in 2010 and competed in the North American Soccer League (2011–2017), North American Soccer League (NASL) from 2011 to ...

as a geographical rivalry between the two Alberta-based clubs in the

. The rivalry is part of a larger sporting rivalry between teams based in

and

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city anc ...

; the two largest cities in the province. The

Wildrose Cup __NOTOC__ Wild rose is the common name of certain flowering shrubs: *Any wild members of the Genus ''Rosa'' (see List of ''Rosa'' species), or, more especially: ** ''Rosa acicularis'', "wild rose", a rose species which occurs in Asia, Europe, and N ...

is awarded annually to the team that wins the most points from the series in league play, which Cavalry won the first year. Cavalry FC–Forge FC rivalry The Cavalry FC–Forge FC rivalry developed during the 2019 spring season as the two top clubs in the league. The rivalry bled into the

2019 Canadian Championship The 2019 Canadian Championship was the twelfth edition of the Canadian Championship, contested from May 15 to September 25, 2019. Montreal Impact won their fourth Canadian Championship title (their tenth Voyageurs Cup) and earned a berth in the ...

in which Cavalry defeated Forge 3–2 over two legs on aggregate. The first leg, which resulted in a 1–1 draw, ended with heated altercations between both sides on the pitch, leading to a disciplinary review by the

Honours

Canadian Premier League playoffs *Runners-up:

Canadian Premier League regular season *Champions (1):

Players and staff

Roster

Staff

Head coaches

Club captains

Record

Year-by-year

1. Average attendance include statistics from league matches only.
2. Top goalscorer(s) includes all goals scored in league season, league playoffs,

CONCACAF League The CONCACAF League was an annual continental club football competition organized by CONCACAF as its second-tier continental competition. It was announced on 8 May 2017. The competition uses a knockout cup format with each round having two le ...

, and other competitive continental matches.

References

External links

* {{Navboxes , titlestyle = background:#335526;; color:#FFFFFF; border: 2px solid #da291d; , list1 = {{Cavalry FC squad {{Canadian Premier League {{Alberta Sports {{Soccer in Calgary 2018 establishments in Alberta Association football clubs established in 2018 Soccer clubs in Calgary Canadian Premier League teams