To me, it was funny that we were clearly at a 'home game' - the stadium was near Musashi-kosugi (which I always think of as the heart of suburban Kawasaki) and the blue Frontale decorations were everywhere - yet the opposing team was Yokohama. I mean, I live in Yokohama. There's no reason why half that stadium shouldn't be full of Yokohama supporters, yet they only had a corner to themselves.
You can get from the main Kawasaki train station to Yokohama in nine minutes. Nine minutes! I'm used to Australia, where all teams have to fly to compete in away games, and thus the vast majority of any crowd is a home crowd, for logical reasons.
Anyway, the game was cool. Katta! We won! Kawasaki and Yokohama scored one goal apiece in the first half, and then Kawasaki got another goal a few minutes before the end of the game, amid much excitement. The games here are a bit more mannerly than in Australia - no louts jumping up and shouting drunken abuse at the referees, etc. Nobody was booing or shouting, just applauding and waving scarves when something interesting happened.
One of the Japanese guys with us explained that nobody jeers at players for making a mistake, but cheer to encourage them. It's a nice change of atmosphere. You also don't see many people eating noodles with chopsticks during an AFL game back in Australia. Haha...
And the cheer squads were the coolest things I've ever seen! There was a whole section where everyone was wearing Frontale shirts, and every few seconds they'd launch into various cheers, with drums for accompaniment. Oh-oh-oh-oh, Frontale! Front-a-le! Oh-oh-oh-oh! Let's go, Frontale! Let's go, Frontale! (etc etc). It had to be seen to be believed.
Frontale cheer squads ^_^
The two big sports here are soccer and baseball. I've been encouraged to watch a sumo match some time. I want to...
No comments:
Post a Comment