WEYMOUTH and Dorchester Town are gearing up for the inaugural Dorset Fans Festival at the Bob Lucas Stadium on Saturday (10am).

The two rival clubs will contest their final pre-season friendly of the summer as the main attraction on a community-at-heart day.

Action begins with a youth tournament between 10am and 12pm before the stadium is cleared and paid admission for the Terras v Magpies friendly can begin.

Weymouth will also unveil their new home kit and director Mark Palmer is looking forward to the occasion as a whole.

He told Echosport: “The key really is that it’s a fully inclusive day in terms of getting everybody involved in the football community between Weymouth, Portland and Dorchester.

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“All three clubs have a really important part to play within their community with football across the age groups and all three clubs do really good work.

“It’s a showpiece of all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes from all the volunteers across the whole year.

“We really want to give something back to the community on Saturday, give them a good day out, give them plenty of football to watch.

“We’ll couple that with some of the entertainment like live music and a mini beer festival.

“We’ll also launch the 22/23 home kit and hopefully some players will be around pre and post-match for fans to talk to as well. It’s an exciting day all round.”

Dorchester chairman Scott Symes is also relishing the first event of its kind between the rival clubs.

He said: “I’m really looking forward to it, I’ve spoken to Mark on a couple of occasions.

“We’ve had a big-ish friendly (against Yeovil) that we wanted to concentrate on but now we’re looking forward to Saturday.

“Hopefully the fans will enjoy it and embrace it in the way it should be. It’s a pre-season friendly celebrating everything that’s good about football round here.

“(Tuesday) showed against Yeovil, it’s really important. Portland are not in our league, we’re not in Weymouth’s league.

“At some point we should come together and play football, which is good for this part of the county.”

The fixture is the first time the clubs have played since last season, when Weymouth ran out 5-2 winners in a pre-season clash at the Avenue.

Live music from Milk & Two will serenade attendees between 12pm and 2pm before The Haze take to the stage between 5pm and 7pm.

Weymouth are also laying on an outdoor bar, hot dog, burger, doughnut and slushie outlets, plus community stalls including Royal Air Force Cadets, The Veterans’ Hub plus a Weymouth FC Pop Up Shop and more.

Entry for the festival and youth tournament is free, although prices for the friendly are £10 each, £5 for concessions and free for under-16s and students.

There will be no segregation between home and away fans.