{"id":713,"date":"2009-12-05T16:05:37","date_gmt":"2009-12-05T16:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/insidejapanblog.com\/?p=713"},"modified":"2017-05-05T17:58:10","modified_gmt":"2017-05-05T16:58:10","slug":"the-happy-hooligan-an-afternoon-watching-j-league-football-fan-in-musahino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/05\/the-happy-hooligan-an-afternoon-watching-j-league-football-fan-in-musahino\/","title":{"rendered":"The Happy Hooligan: An afternoon watching J-League football"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>Like this post? Help us by sharing it!<\/h4><ul class=\"wpfai-list\"><li class=\"wpfai-list-item facebook\">\r\n      <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.insidejapantours.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F713&amp;t=\" title=\"Facebook\" class=\"wpfai-facebook wpfai-link wpfainw\">\r\n        <span class=\"fa-stack fa-lg\">\r\n          <i class=\"fa fa-square fa-stack-2x\"><\/i>\r\n          <i class=\"fa fa-facebook fa-stack-1x fa-inverse\"><\/i>\r\n        <\/span>\r\n      <\/a>\r\n    <\/li><li class=\"wpfai-list-item twitter\">\r\n      <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?text=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.insidejapantours.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F713\" title=\"Twitter\" class=\"wpfai-twitter wpfai-link wpfainw\">\r\n        <span class=\"fa-stack fa-lg\">\r\n          <i class=\"fa fa-square fa-stack-2x\"><\/i>\r\n          <i class=\"fa fa-twitter fa-stack-1x fa-inverse\"><\/i>\r\n        <\/span>\r\n      <\/a>\r\n    <\/li><li class=\"wpfai-list-item pinterest\">\r\n      <a href=\"http:\/\/pinterest.com\/pin\/create\/button\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.insidejapantours.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F713&amp;description=&amp;media=\" title=\"Pinterest\" class=\"wpfai-pinterest wpfai-link wpfainw\">\r\n        <span class=\"fa-stack fa-lg\">\r\n          <i class=\"fa fa-square fa-stack-2x\"><\/i>\r\n          <i class=\"fa fa-pinterest fa-stack-1x fa-inverse\"><\/i>\r\n        <\/span>\r\n      <\/a>\r\n    <\/li><li class=\"wpfai-list-item linkedin\">\r\n      <a href=\"http:\/\/linkedin.com\/shareArticle?mini=true&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.insidejapantours.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F713&amp;title=\" title=\"Linked In\" class=\"wpfai-linkedin wpfai-link wpfainw\">\r\n        <span class=\"fa-stack fa-lg\">\r\n          <i class=\"fa fa-square fa-stack-2x\"><\/i>\r\n          <i class=\"fa fa-linkedin fa-stack-1x fa-inverse\"><\/i>\r\n        <\/span>\r\n      <\/a>\r\n    <\/li><li class=\"wpfai-list-item envelope\">\r\n      <a href=\"mailto:?subject=&amp;body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.insidejapantours.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F713%20-%20\" title=\"E-Mail\" class=\"wpfai-envelope wpfai-link wpfainw\">\r\n        <span class=\"fa-stack fa-lg\">\r\n          <i class=\"fa fa-square fa-stack-2x\"><\/i>\r\n          <i class=\"fa fa-envelope fa-stack-1x fa-inverse\"><\/i>\r\n        <\/span>\r\n      <\/a>\r\n    <\/li><li class=\"wpfai-list-item stumbleupon\">\r\n      <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stumbleupon.com\/submit?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.insidejapantours.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F713\" title=\"Stumble Upon\" class=\"wpfai-stumbleupon wpfai-link wpfainw\">\r\n        <span class=\"fa-stack fa-lg\">\r\n          <i class=\"fa fa-square fa-stack-2x\"><\/i>\r\n          <i class=\"fa fa-stumbleupon fa-stack-1x fa-inverse\"><\/i>\r\n        <\/span>\r\n      <\/a>\r\n    <\/li><li class=\"wpfai-list-item reddit\">\r\n      <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/submit?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.insidejapantours.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F713\" title=\"Reddit\" class=\"wpfai-reddit wpfai-link wpfainw\">\r\n        <span class=\"fa-stack fa-lg\">\r\n          <i class=\"fa fa-square fa-stack-2x\"><\/i>\r\n          <i class=\"fa fa-reddit fa-stack-1x fa-inverse\"><\/i>\r\n        <\/span>\r\n      <\/a>\r\n    <\/li><\/ul><p style=\"text-align: left;\">A skinhead in a bomber jacket, rolled- up jeans and red Doc Martens rushed towards me. \u201cHi, we\u2019re upstairs, let\u2019s go\u201d he said. His name was Yamada, and he was my hooligan friend for the afternoon.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->I first met Yamada when he was working at a kushikatsu (deep fried meat and vegetable) bar near my home in west Tokyo. He served me a deep fried tomato and we began talking. He loved English football, blasting out for my benefit Coventry and Millwall terrace chants on his iPod.<\/p>\n<p>Now, he had invited me to come and support his team <a href=\"http:\/\/http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Yokogawa_Musashino_F.C.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Yokogawa Musashino<\/a>, a local amateur team in the 3rd tier of Japanese football. I sat with Yamada amongst his friends, a group of about 50 hardcore Musashino supporters. They were like family, he even called the pissed woman next to him O-nesan, big sister. Immediately offering me <a href=\"http:\/\/http:\/\/simple.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Takoyaki\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">takoyaki<\/a> (fried octopus balls) and a can of beer, Yamada made me feel very welcome.<\/p>\n<p>The football was pretty to watch. Far too pretty for someone raised watching lower division football in England. The lack of aimless lumps forward, bone-breaking challenges and woeful ball control was disappointing. There wasn\u2019t enough incompetence for my liking. The opposition were granted respect rather than ridicule. Their chubby right-back was certainly fat enough to merit a taunt of \u2018Who ate all the takoyakis?\u2019, but his considerable gut escaped comment. The pony-tailed opposition striker never got a round of \u2018Where\u2019s your caravan?\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of abuse, some fans tried coaching. A drunk and deluded supporter sat to my left kept screaming at Musashino\u2019s defenders to mark their men when the opposition had a corner. As if the defenders might suddenly ignore their years of intense instruction from professional coaches and start taking advice from a pissed bloke sitting 100 yards away.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/november-2009-japan-194.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-715\" title=\"The Yokogawa Musashino players take a post mtach bow\" src=\"https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/november-2009-japan-194.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/november-2009-japan-194.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/november-2009-japan-194-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/november-2009-japan-194-720x540.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/november-2009-japan-194-390x293.jpg 390w, https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/november-2009-japan-194-780x585.jpg 780w, https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/november-2009-japan-194-900x675.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Apart from a slight ringing in my left ear, I felt no pain during my afternoon with the Musashino hardcore. Yamada\u2019s shaved head, beer can and Doc Martens give him the look of a potential trouble-maker. But, there is no rage there. He\u2019s a hooligan in dress not in heart. His most aggressive act of the afternoon was to persuade me to have a second takoyaki ball. And because he was no nice, and because I like takoyaki, I hope he will invite me again.<\/p>\n<h4>Like this post? 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Help us by sharing it! A skinhead in a bomber jacket, rolled- up jeans and red Doc Martens rushed towards me. \u201cHi, we\u2019re upstairs, let\u2019s go\u201d he said. His name was Yamada, and he was my hooligan friend for the afternoon. Like this post? Help us by sharing it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2369],"tags":[1523,1817,2160,2195],"class_list":["post-713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-and-adventure-in-japan","tag-football","tag-kushikatsu","tag-takoyaki","tag-tokyo"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14382,"href":"https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions\/14382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insidejapantours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}