The Armada played at Patton Park Saturday after EWU temporarily suspended their agreement with the team over a “facilities management challenge.”
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville Armada supporters found themselves puzzled when the team unexpectedly revealed a change in venue for the upcoming Saturday match.
Fans had to adjust their plans and head to Patton Park located on Hodge Boulevard, as the team informed via Facebook that Edward Waters University had temporarily put their agreement on hold.
“We started before the team even had a name,” Sebastian Cardona said while waiting for the men’s game to start. “We’ve been there since Day 0.”
Sebastian Cardona is the president of Section 904, the official fan group for the Jacksonville Armada.
He said he’s followed the Armada to eight different fields through the years to see them play.
“The issue with not owning our stadium is that we have to depend on alternative arrangements, and there isn’t a dedicated soccer stadium for a professional team,” Cardona explained.
Cardona was getting used to heading to Edward Waters University for the home games this season until that suddenly came to an end.
The Armada posted that EWU abruptly canceled their contract for the foreseeable future.
In a statement, EWU said it was the late discovery of a “facilities management challenge” that prompted the university to temporarily suspend their agreement.
First Coast News reached out to spokespersons for both the team and the school, but both said they couldn’t share anything beyond the statements.
“It’s not a big thing because we’ve been switching so much,” Cardona said.
“We’re going to be out here supporting them no matter what,” Josh Richburg said while arriving for the game. “We like the location out here just as much as the location over there.”
“Yeah, not a big deal,” said Dennis Sciarratta, whose granddaughter plays for the team.
The Armada held a soft groundbreaking for their new stadium on A Philip Randolph Boulevard in January, but the completion deadline was pushed from July of this year to next March.
“It’s just kind of annoying that in the year we should be playing in our own stadium downtown, we still have to deal with the biggest issue the team has had since we started, which is that we don’t have our own stadium,” Cardona said.
EWU’s statement goes on to say they hope to resolve the issues in time to host the Armada’s remaining four home games in the regular season.
The first of those games is coming up next Saturday.
