The sixth Corona League season kicks off tomorrow night at Goose Gosling Field with the Coronita Charity Shield between Tuff Dogs and North Village Rams, last season’s league and Challenge Cup winners.

The league schedule was released yesterday by Michael McGrath, the Corona League president, and will begin next weekend with two matches on Friday and another three on Saturday.

B&V United, the league’s latest team, have replaced Valley FC who have folded. United take on Dogs, the defending champions, on Saturday.

“The Coronita Charity Shield will warm us up nicely for the much anticipated start to the league, with the teams wanting to see if all their efforts in pre-season have been enough,” McGrath said.

“With a break for Christmas, and Challenge Cup matches filtered into the schedule, the league continues until March 14 when we find out who is the sixth winner engraved on the Corona League trophy.

“We all know that there will be plenty of drama and excitement on the journey to discover that name.”

McGrath said that the league would also be continuing with the Christmas transfer window, which was successfully launched last season, enabling players from the top five teams to join sides in the bottom half of the table.

“[The transfer window] refreshes the league midway through the season and strengthens the lower sides,” McGrath said.

“The window will be open for the first two weeks in January. Some of the big teams have a lot of players and not everyone can get a game, so some of those players can go and help strengthen the weaker sides and hopefully make it a more competitive league.”

McGrath said that the league has exceeded expectations by some way since it was formed in 2009 after the Commercial League disbanded in the wake of league restructuring by the Bermuda Football Association.

“The competitiveness has grown and the teams are taking it very seriously, putting in a lot of effort and training hard,” McGrath said.

“Another thing that has exceeded expectations is the amount of spectators we’ve attracted.

“It’s great to have a family atmosphere down there. Some of the games are attracting quite good crowds with some people watching three games back-to-back”

McGrath has not ruled out the league returning to 12 teams in the future.

“Ten is a good workable number but if the teams want to we could definitely increase it to twelve,” he said.