Football Fan

I've always wanted to M to get behind either the Hiroshima Carp or the Sanfrecce football team, as I love the idea of following a local sports team. I think it's something that grounds you as a person who "belongs" to your hometown. It's not about fanaticism or competition, winning or losing or any of that. It's about community. And ( especially in Hiroshima's case these days!) learning loyalty, that you stick by your people, even if they are not winning in life, and even if there is nothing in it for you.

Dr Dad played baseball in elementary school, and you could argue that baseball is much more strongly rooted in Japanese society than football. In Hiroshima, the Carp pro baseball team was founded immediately after the war, to try and help people with recovery in the aftermath of the A-bomb. The old municipal baseball stadium which closed last year in favour of a modern one, is right across from the A-bomb dome memorial. So baseball would be fine too.

Being British though, I'd much rather she went for the football team. Sanfrecce, although a relatively young pro team, being a founding member of the J-League when it was formed in 1992, has been around as an amateur team since as far back as 1938, but football has never been as popular as baseball here. The ironic fascination with all things American persists into sport.

Anyway, in reality, I make myself much too busy to get to either on a regular basis (we've managed about 4 matches this year), but last week the local community kids group gave us free tickets for the match against Omiya, and we actually managed to go.

M barely knows the rules, and has no idea of the payers names, but she was right in there, as close to the choir as she could get, yelling SANFRECCE at the top of her lungs.
That's my girl!
Didn't help much though as we lost 2-1, despite an exciting first 3rd minute goal...

Next I have to get her onto the Pars!