Tochigi City FC

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tochigi City FC
Template: Infobox Football Club / Maintenance / No picture
Basic data
Surname Tochigi City Football Club
Seat Tochigi , Tochigi
founding 1947
Colours blue
Website tochigi-uva.com
First soccer team
Venue Tochigi Municipal Stadium
Places 5,500
league Kanto regional league
2018 1st place
home
Away

Tochigi City FC ( Japanese 栃 木 シ テ ィ FC Tochigi Shiti Efu Shī ) is a Japanese football club from Tochigi in the province of the same name . He played in the Japan Football League from 2010 to 2017 , the current division is the Kantō - Regionalliga . Tochigi City FC has the status of a J. League Centenary Club , which is the most important basis for a possible promotion to the professional league.

history

The club was founded in 1948 as a corporate team of the Hitachi group under the name Hitachi Tochigi Soccer-bu ( 日立 栃 木 サ ッ カ ー 部 Hitachi Tochigi Sakkā-bu ). In the first fifty years of its existence, Hitachi Tochigi played almost exclusively in the various leagues of the prefecture without any great ambitions on national football. A slow improvement turned out only at the turn of the century one, starred than meets the continuously for the championship of the prefecture, before the end of the 2002 season promotion to the second division of the Kanto - Regional succeeded.

In 2006, the club was named Hitachi Tochigi Uva SC ( 日立 栃 木 ウ ー ヴ ァ ス ポ ー ツ ク ラ ブ Hitachi Tochigi Ūva Supōtsu Kurabu ), in the same year the first division of the regional league was reached. There they reached second place three times in a row and took part in the national regional league finals in 2008 and 2009 . After a preliminary round from 2008, the competition was concluded in 2009 with second place in the finals, which qualified for promotion to the Japan Football League .

Upon reaching the Japan Football League, it was renamed Tochigi Uva FC ( 栃 木 ウ ー ヴ ァ FC ). After the plan to found the J3 League became known , an application was made to acquire the status of the J. League Hundred Year Plan Club , which is the most important prerequisite for promotion to the professional leagues. This was finally granted in June 2014. Since the promotion to the JFL, however, the sporting expectations have lagged behind their own claims; mostly one occupied places in the lower third of the table at the end of the season and only stayed in the league at regular intervals because other teams either achieved promotion to professional football or withdrew from the game at the end of the season. At the end of the 2017 season, this luck was finally used up, Tochigi Uva returned to the Kanto regional league as bottom of the table after a total of eight years in the highest amateur league in Japan.

The descent brought profound changes at club and board level with the aim of promoting the professionalization of the club in general. Among other things, the decision was made that all future player contracts should in principle be professional contracts. The changes initially achieved the desired success, Uva achieved the regional league championship title undefeated and the associated qualification for the national final round, but a form low in the preliminary round of the same ended early on all hopes for a quick return to the JFL. For the 2019 season, it was renamed Tochigi City FC again.

Stages

The main home ground of Tochigi City FC is the Tochigi Municipal Stadium, which can seat 5500 spectators.

Surname

The city , which has been in use since 2019, sees itself in the tradition of many associations of the same name, especially English ones, and on the other hand it should be emphasized even more that it is the association for the city of Tochigi and its immediate surroundings - also to differentiate it from the prefectural rival Tochigi SC , which sees itself as an association for the entire prefecture.

The previously used nickname Uva describes the grape in various southern European languages and is a reference to the wine-growing region in the southern prefecture of Tochigi, where the association is at home.

successes

2018

Individual evidence

  1. 栃 木 ウ ー ヴ ァ 「プ ロ 化」 へ 1 年 で の JFL 復 帰 掲 げ. Shimono Shimbun, December 13, 2017, accessed January 28, 2019 (Japanese).
  2. ウ ー ヴ ァ FC か ら 「栃 木 シ テ ィ FC」 に 新 名称 決 ま る. Shimono Shimbun, November 29, 2018, accessed January 28, 2019 (Japanese).

Web links