Young Power A Go-Go!

Going to football matches has been one of the few things I've really missed in Japan, and listening to games on the internet or on the radio just isn't the same. So it was with great excitement that me and Phil set out to our first ever J-League game, our newly adopted team Kobe Vissel against those cheeky northerners of Consadole Sapporo.

The experience was great, being both similar to a regular football match and a uniquely Japanese experience. Firstly we have great slogans like 'Higher Than Yesterday', 'Young Power A Go-Go', 'We Swear, "Keep Challenging"', and the absolutely wonderful banner you can see below, 'Vissel Expects Than Everyman Will Do His Duty!!' The best thing about Vissel though is that we seem to have picked a team to support that has a whole stand full of nutters! If you enlarge the crowd photos below, ull see a bit of what I mean. The result itself was dissapointing; a clanger by the Consadole goalie left an easy finish for Kurihara in the 76th minute, but just sixty seconds later Consadole's (what I can only assume is the incredible) 'Hulk' scored a sweet goal from the edge of the penalty area to make it 1-1 on the night. We're second in the league- and we could have gone top if we'd got a result last night. On Wednesday 1st plays 3rd, in a crucial game. We need to finish in the top two, or we'll end up playing a playoff against the 17th team in J1 to see who gets promoted/remains in the top division.

At the end of the game, the team came round and bowed to each stand; I was lucky enough to shake new player Gabriel's hand- although he seemed a bit puzzled to see us gaijin (foreigners) in the crowd! Having Kobe shirts meant that there was a bit of banter with Nihonjin fans after the game, although we were in the boring stand compared to the nutter stand opposite us- which we'll go in from now on! We also struggled to translate 'close him down' and 'get into them' accurately, and failed to think of a song that included the line 'your mother is a snowman', although that's probably just as well. To be fair, Consadole deserved the point- I'd feel sorry for the fans coming all the way down from (and especially going all the way back to) the grim northern wastelands of Hokkaido otherwise. We could drink beer in our seats which was cool- although the 'Vissel dog' I ate before the game was pretty rubbish! After the final whistle we frantically dashed to get to the subway to get the last train back to Okayama; it takes 2 hrs to get back if you don't get the Shinkansen (which, of course, only takes 30 mins). Next up in the sports world is a first visit to my newly adopted baseball team, Hiroshima Carps. Thats right, they're named after an ugly fish. As for Vissel, its a couple of months till we have a string of games we can go to- the crunch matches of November will make or break our season- until then its back to following football via the internet!