Gainare Tottori is the new name for the club that, until recently, has gone by the simple name of SC Tottori. In our view, this change is actually a good one, since it helps to re-establish the precedent of adopting a unique team name and identity. In recent years there has been a trend towards "understated simplicity", in which clubs simply append two initials to the name of their home region -- a trend perpetuated by the comparative success of teams like "Ehime FC" or "FC Ryukyu". However, now that the JFL is filling up with "FCs" and "SCs", this stylization has lost any appeal it may once have had in terms of understatement and "uniqueness", and starting to grate on the ear. Nowadays, the adoption of a plain vanilla name such as "Mytown FC" simply leaves the impression that the club officials are short on imagination and creativity.

If Gainare Tottori is trying to set a new trend, they have done a good job of showing potential imitators how this should be done. The choice of name is not only creative, and particularly representative of the area where the team is based, but it also has strong fan support, having been selected from among several candidate names by popular vote (the team will soon announce their new logos, which also are being selected by fan vote). "Gainare" has the advantage of sounding vaguely Italian, while also appealing to regional pride. The term is a combination of the Tottori-area slang term "gaina" --which has various applications but generally is used to mean "big", "great", "impressive", or "strong" -- and "nare", the emphatic form of the verb "to become". In other words, it uses a unique local slang expression to generate the meaning "Become great!" or "Be strong!".

Gainare Tottori is aggressively pursuing J.League membership, and intends to reach the J2 level no later than 2010. There are several factors that count in their favour as a good candidate for a place in the J2. The first is that they have a fine home stadium -- the 16,000-seat Tottori Bird Stadium. Although the facility will require some renovation work in order to bring it up to the standard required to host regular J2 matches, Bird Stadium has, over the years, staged a number of matches in both the J-League and Emperor's Cup.

Second, Tottori have an established history as an independent club, incorporated separately from any parent company and not dependent on any single corporate sponsor, thus meeting a key criterion for entry into the J-League. The team was formed at the grassroots level, under the name Tottori Teachers Soccer Group, and the club's rise to their current position -- knocking on the door to the country's elite club of football professionals -- is a major success story in grassroots football development. This independent status is rightly a source of local pride. According to the team's website, the J.League has already verified their compliance with four of the seven key criteria for achieving J2 membership -- a stadium that seats over 10,000 fans, a youth and junior youth support network, an independent organization, and players who have received professional contracts. The team's annual revenues are reportedly about 10-20% short of the required Y150 million, but a successful promotion run would almost certainly carry them over that target level. Similarly, a strong campaign on the pitch should carry them over the 3,000 mark for average home attendance. That leaves only one requirement to be met -- a top-two finish. As we said, if the team can achieve this goal, the other two unmet requirements should fall into place naturally.

Gainare Tottori's history has had its ups and downs. Under the name SC Tottori, which the team adopted in 1989, they earned a reputation as the San-in region yo-yo, as they constantly moved up and down between regional and prefectural leagues. It was not until1998 that the team managed to hold on to a spot in the Chugoku regional league. In 2000, though, the club made a huge step forward, coming from nowhere to capture the Chugoku League title and fight their way through the playoff matches to the JFL.

This sudden advance actually caused the team management considerable headaches, particularly in terms of team finances. Although attempts were made to mobilise the community in support of the local club, the results on the pitch were poor. SC Tottori finished dead last in their inaugural season. Although the team has made modest improvements since then, the trend towards expansion of the professional football structure in Japan began to gather pace in 2004 and 2005, and SC Tottori has found it difficult to keep up. While other provincial teams like Otsuka Pharmaceutical (now Tokushima Vortis), Thespa Kusatsu and Ehime FC were getting promoted to J2, the club from the Japan Sea coast has been slipping back towards the middle of the table. The need for across-the-board changes was obvious, if SC Tottori were to avoid being left behind.

In 2005, therefore, the team adopted a more aggressive tack, and issued announcements describing its plan to earn J2 membership. It is difficult to make accurate forecasts for a club with limited financial resources, such as SC Tottori, since much will depend on the level of talent they can attract, despite their limited budget. As teams like Ventforet Kofu and Thespa Kusatsu have demonstrated, money alone is not what earns a team promotion. Strong community pride and grassroots support can go a long way towards offsetting any disadvantage in finances Although Gainare was not as competitive on the pitch, in the past, in 2008 they began making serious efforts to attract former J.Leaguers to the ranks in order to achieve their goals. The additions included former Japan NT defender Norio Omura as well as Hiroshi Kichise and Tomoyuki Yoshino. The changes that the team has made over the past few years show that it is on the right track. If the trend continues, the San-in region may get its first taste of professional football by the end of the decade.