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Photopost: College Football at Yokohama Stadium, November 7th
So on Sunday I went to Yokohama to watch "amefuto", or "American Football" as they call it here, with Kozo. (Kozo's Canadian-Japanese and loves football and baseball, I know him from watching Yakult Swallows baseball games.) I had chosen this weekend because it would probably feature some decent games and would feature universities from Big 6 that I usually cheer for in baseball -- in particular, Game 2 was Keio vs. Kokushikan (3rd place vs. 4th place) and Game 3 was Hosei vs. Nichidai (1st place vs. 1st place). No, really, Hosei and Nichidai were both undefeated going into this game and at the top of the 1st League A Block.
We met up at 1pm in the Yokohama Baystars store, where I was buying a jersey to later affix Kagami's name and number once he has one to, and then we walked over to Yokohama Stadium a block or two away, for the game. It turned out that if you used your Suica or Pasmo card (a kind of RFID card that we mostly use for the subways and small purchases at convenience stores) to pay for your ticket you got a 50 yen discount, so we did that. You still received a paper ticket, but you basically touched your Suica card to a sensor, it deducted the 1150 yen, and the girl at the desk gave you a ticket. I'm not sure why the discount, maybe for saving them the trouble of doing bookkeeping for cash?
It was really neat seeing the stadium set up for football. You could still see the dirt infield outline of the baseball diamond but the mound had been somehow submerged and the field was chalked for football, with the goal posts on home plate and then out by the outfield wall:
Keio and Hosei were both using the first base side, so we found seats in what would normally be "A" seating for a baseball game, about 10 rows up in the rising seating behind first base, which was more like being behind the 35-yard line or so for this. The cheerleader girls were on the field and the brass band club was sitting in the first few rows of seats, so that the band leader could conduct both the band and the cheer girls, so to speak -- sometimes the girls yelled cheers and sometimes they danced with the brass band music, and sometimes both.
The ouendan guys, the boys in the full black gakuran uniforms, were in the stands with the fans leading the actual cheers that the fans were doing, like "DEFENSE! [clap clap]" or "Let's go Unicorns!! [clapclap clapclapclap]". I even saw Kitada-kun, the Keio ouendan leader dude I know from baseball... we were both like "what are YOU doing here?" which was kind of funny.
And there was a wide variety of merchandise available for the Big 6 teams, though not so much for the others. Keio had a big table set up before their game and so did Hosei, but I didn't see anything at all for Kokushikan. Nihon University had a merchandise table but it was significantly smaller than Hosei's, though they were giving out free cardboard megaphones to cheer with. (Hosei may have been giving out free Thundersticks but we think that was out with the ouendan and not in the main entry area. Keio also had Thundersticks.)
I suppose it matches the bands and cheerleaders, as Kokushikan did not have a band or cheerleaders but the other 3 universities all did. Keio's cheer girls did a halftime show, but there was no halftime show during the second game, I guess because both teams had cheer girls so it wasn't clear whose responsibility it was?
There were also reasonable food concessions, which I was both surprised by and grateful for. About 6000 people came to the second game so I suppose it makes sense for them to have, especially at a place like Yokohama Stadium. What I didn't see, though, was beer vendors and such walking through the stands with kegs like there would be at a baseball game. I assume there must have been beer, but both Kozo and I drank colas we bought from vending machines. It might just be that I didn't notice the vendors, but I actually think there weren't any...
Anyway, the first game, Keio won 35-10 and it wasn't even close. Football isn't my forte so it is hard to talk about, but they played a lot more of a running game and a lot less of a passing game, as even Kozo noted that Keio had a QUARTERBACK who was in the top 5 in running yards in the league. It was kind of hard to follow the game at times, but in general Keio was just on top of things and getting/moving the ball more. A bunch of their touchdowns were just times when one guy just... got away from the pack and ran all the way down the field. It happened several times. But at the same time, Kokushi did succeed in forcing Keio's line back as well, they just couldn't push ahead quite enough for more touchdowns. I think they got several penalties called too.
The second game was a lot closer and looked a HELL of a lot more like what I was used to watching in the US -- a variety of passing/running plays more focused on passing, a lot more of what looked like strategy as one team tried to do something and another team reacted to stop them, and neither team was going to budge an inch, let alone a yard. The first quarter was 0-0 and after that Hosei got one touchdown in the second quarter to lead 7-0 at the half. The third quarter saw them get two field goals and go up 13-0.
The fourth quarter is where things got interesting. Hosei ran in another touchdown early on, and decided to try for a 2-point conversion instead of a point after... and failed, so that made it 19-0. Nichidai got their first touchdown a bit after that to make it 19-6, and either failed the point after or tried for a conversion and failed, I forget which. Their next touchdown and successful point after made it a 19-13 game, which was actually close enough to make things interesting, at least!
But yeah, Hosei managed to hold them off long enough to win the game. So now they go into the playoffs in two weeks.
Between the two games I went down to the edge of the field and took photos and stuff, but didn't bother after the second game because it was so late and so dark. This was actually the retirement game for all of the 4th-years on the teams except for Hosei, so many Keio players wandered over to the stands as well to say hello and/or goodbye to friends and fans. I don't know any of the players, obviously, but the Keio captain Yusuke Ashina was talking to people and posing for pictures for people and also smiled at me :)
Dunno why but it's one of my favorite pictures I took all day.
Anyway...
Pictures!
Kickoff!
Quarterback Sudoh making a throw.
He's running to the mound!
Just an amusing perspective on the Yokohama infield.
One of the running plays that scored a touchdown.
Cheer girls look the same no matter what country they're in.
And football mostly uses English words here anyway.
Halftime show, part 1.
Halftime show, part 2.
Final score of the first game, Keio wins 35-10.
Hosei people start setting up the cheering area for the next game...
Keio seniors pose for a picture out by the cheering area.
Two random players posing for a photo for their friends.
Kurt Rose, who is the offensive coordinator or something like that for the Keio squad.
Quarterback Sudoh, the throwing one.
Sunaga and Tokushima (the running quarterback).
Random Nichidai players warming up.
Running.
Kicking.
Practicing field goals -- this was taken from behind "home plate" :)
Before the game, just like baseball, or any sport here, they all line up and bow to each other... kinda. In this case it's more like, the captains go out and bow and shake hands and do a coin toss or whatever (actually given that this is Japan I am figuring they must do rock-paper-scissors for the first possession...)
Random game photos.
Cheer girls and the brass band club.
Their cheer was like "DE! FE! N! SE! DEFENSE!" I wonder if they have any native English speakers around to tell them that you cannot split the word that way.
"HOLD! THE LINE! TOMAHAWKS! DEFENSE!"
This reminded me of something that, had it happened at CMU in front of the Kiltie Band, we would have invented a callback for.
Game results. Hosei wins 19-13 and advances to the playoffs against Tohoku.
#13 is the team captain. #50 is the dude who got penalties called like 4 times for holding.
Oh yeah, and here is me, when we first arrived. I was so psyched.
My Fighters friend Sakamoto actually came to watch the last game -- he had just gotten back that afternoon from a work trip to Korea, and answered an email of mine about the Konta-Sunaga trade, and was like "what are you up to?" and I said "I'm watching American football at Yokohama!" He likes football a lot, so I told him the schedule and he showed up about 10-15 mins into the Hosei-Nichidai game. So that was kinda cool.
But afterwards Kozo and I were going to get ramen for dinner and Sakamoto was like "I just got home from Korea so I really ought to go home and unpack."
So Kozo and I went to some "yokohama-house" style ramen place that I would never ever be able to find again in my life but which had AMAZING ramen. Seriously.
And then I went home.
Wow, I am still totally behind on LJ.
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- The pitcher's mound at Yokohama stadium is actually on a lift, so that it can be lowered for other sports. I played football there three or four times, and it's cool to watch them lower the thing.
- Of course Kokushikan doesn't have cheergirls! They would be totally against the raison d'etre of the school, which is to educate 日本男児 (Nihon danji). (I think the only reason that Kokushikan University is coed is because someone has to give birth to those Nihon danji.) This is actually what some of their school introductions said back in the day. The male cheerleaders were probably at some more traditional Japanese sporting event, such as judo, kendo, karate or whatever. And I don't think it is correct to abbreviate the school name as "Kokushi" (国士）because in this day and age that's sort of a right-wing nutcase. It might be okay, though, because a significant percentage of the graduates are either right-wing nutcases or policemen. I'm not sure.... :p
- The coin toss is such an integral part of "American football" that it is also used in Japan. Unless the referee has forgotten to bring a coin....
- WTF has Hosei done to their uniforms?!?!?! They used to wear white pants. Maybe they're screwing with Nihon U. because when they were the bully on the block, they used to always wear their red jerseys and pants.
- "DE! FE! N! SE!" is so Hosei.... I've seen some of their students from the English Speaking Society pull similar stunts at ENGLISH public speaking contests.
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http://pds.exblog.jp/pds/1/201005/07/28/b0166128_8131663.jpg
So if it's okay for them to use as an abbreviation at their official sporting events, I figure it's okay for me to use in my blog.
Hosei does still wear white pants sometimes, and blue pants sometimes, and even blue uniform tops, apparently: http://blog.nikkansports.com/user/hosei/af%20toppage.html
I think their football club has way too much money to burn.
When's the last time you actually went to any college sporting events, anyway?
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I actually almost thought about asking if you'd want to come along for this one, especially since it involved Keio, but it was a Sunday and you're never free on Sundays, plus I wasn't 100% sure I was going until Saturday itself, thanks to the nutso Japan Series. I may still go to the playoffs when Hosei tries to claw their way to a Koshien Bowl berth.
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That is so damn cool. I'm obsessed with football, so I'd love to see one of these games. That running quarterback reminds me of Cam Newton.
Did they use American rules or Canadian rules? I can't tell from the photos if the goalpost was at the back of the endzone or the front.
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Honestly, I don't know the rules well enough to tell you. I noticed that some things seemed a little different than what I'm used to, like when they do or don't stop the clock, and things like, people are considered down when they fall, regardless of whether they actually are able to stand back up.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UIdI8khMkw
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