Sunday, 19 January 2020

Consadole Sapporo

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Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo (the Hokkaido was added in 2018) is located in, you guessed it, Hokkaido, the northernmost part of Japan. Although it does not have the same unbroken history of participation in domestic leagues enjoyed by Sanfrecce Hiroshima (officially listed as the "oldest professional club"), the precursor to this club was actually formed before any other professional football organization currently active in Japan. Consadole can trace its roots back to the Toshiba soccer club, which was established in 1935. Until the mid 1970s, it was just a small company club, and took part in no national competitions. In 1976, it entered the national regional football league, won promotion to the JSL second division a year later, and won the championship of that league in 1979. This rapid development continued through the 1990s, but the club fell just short of the requirements needed to take part in the creation of the J.League in 1993.

To meet the requirements for J.League entry, the team incorporated as the Hokkaido Football Club in 1996, taking the name "Consadole Sapporo". The name is one of those strange concoctions so common in the J.League, which sounds so far-fetched that it surely must be a joke . . . but turns out to be absolutely true. People who were born in Hokkaido are often referred to as "Dosanko" -- literally "children born in the "Do". Most of Japan's prefectures bear the suffix "ken" (Prefecture), or "fu" (Urban Prefecture). Hokkai-do is the exception -- the suffix "do" referring to a rural district. Thus, "Dosanko" means something along the lines of "hillbilly", though people from the prefecture wear it proudly. In creating a name for their football team, fans simply took the syllables in do-sa-n-ko and reversed them to read "ko-n-sa-do", and then added the Spanish exclamation "Ole" to give it additional emphasis. Consadole!

Two years after the name change, Consadole won the JFL title and advanced to the J.League. It adopted a mascot and team emblem based on the Blakiston's Fish Owl (also known as the "Snow Owl"), the largest owl in Japan and a very well-known inhabitant of Hokkaido.

Team Name:



Team Flag:

Home Uniform -- Away Uniform

Management Corporation:  The Hokkaido Football Club Co., Ltd.
Established: 16 April 1996
President: Yoshiaki Tanaka
Investors: Consortium of approximately 80 local companies
Address:  42-5 Higashi 3-chome, Kita 9-jo, Higashi-ku, Sapporo City, Hokkaido 060-0909

Hometown Area: Sapporo City, Hokkaido

Home Stadium:  Sapporo Dome (capacity: 42,300))

Joined J. League: 1998