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Kyushu Regional League (Kyu League)
Recently Kyushu has been the most fertile source of new prospective J.League teams, and accordingly, one of the most highly competitive regiopnal leagues in the country. However, the departure of Rosso Kumamoto, FC Ryukyu and New Wave Kitakyushu, in recent years, has lowered the level of competition in the Kyu League somewhat. Still, there are several highly competitive teams that are aiming for promotion to the JFL, and eventually, to the J.League. While the competition this year may produce a clearly two-tier battle -- three or four teams fighting for the top spot and nearly all the rest focusing on avoiding relegation -- we would not be surprised to see another Kyushu team as the top candidate for JFL promotion. Therefore, even if there is some disparity in competitiveness, top clubs like Volca Kagoshima, Okinawa Kariyushi and V Varen Nagasaki will be a focus of attention for those keeping an eye out for future J.League prospects.
2006 TEAMS
V.Varen NagasakiThe Mighty Ducks continue to draw much of their strength from Kunimi HS, the prefecture's perrennial schoolboy soccer powerhouse, with no fewer than eleven Kunimi grads on the roster. Several of the players boast some JFL experience, and the "star" veteran is former Avispa Fukuoka midfielder Takeo Harada. Another player to watch, at least in terms of his potential "political influence", is Eiji Komine, the 23-year-old son of legendary Kunimi HS coach Tadatoshi Komine. Coach Komine has repeatedly turned down offers to coach other JFL and regional teams, and has even been courted by Avispa Fukuoka in the past. Up to now he has always preferred to stay in the high school ranks. However, with three former Kunimi coaches already running the team, and his son on the roster, "Coach K" might be prevailed upon to leave schoolboy coaching, should V.Varen progress to the JFL. Local support for the team is excellent; V.Varen managed to draw a crowd in excess of 6000 for one Kyu League game, suggesting that they have the infrastructure to make a go of it at an even higher level. We view them as one of the top candidates to claim the title this season.
Okinawa KariyushiUnfortunately, the main actors failed to follow the script, and Kariyushi's bid for promotion to the JFL fell short, as the team dropped out in the first round of the Nationwide Regional League Championship Tournament. Coach Ramos apparently got into a row with the sponsors ovver who was to blame for this failure, and he left in a blaze of . . . . well . . . certainly not glory. The players responded by resigning en masse and forming a new club -- FC Ryukyu -- which would quickly fulfill the dream of JFL promotion. Kariyushi was left a shell of a club, and had to start over from scratch. However, they still retained their position in the Kyu League (as the 2002 champions) and plenty of corporate money. This attracted a new group of players as well as coach Hisashi Kato, whose pedigree as a footballer rivalled that of Ramos, and whose coaching qualifications were even better. In 2003, the team again won the Kyu League, but once more they fell short in the playoffs for a JFL spot, and the grumbling in corporate headquarters began to grow. In 2004, the stormy history of the team reached hurricane force. The team finished second to Honda Lock on the final day of the season, triggering another round of finger-pointing which sent coach Kamo marching out the door along with 27 players, many of whom joined the "Ramos generation" at FC Ryukyu. The main sponsor, Kariyushi Hotels, bailed out just as rapidly, and it looked like the club might be disbanded entirely. In the end, a few of the club officials managed to re-group prior and put together a squad for the 2005 season based mainly on players from the youth team, and players who had been dropped from the squad a few years before. Not surprisingly they struggled to compete in 2005, finishing in a disappointing eighth place. But the team did manage to retain its place in the Kyu League, and will seek to consolidate further this year.
Volca KagoshimaA breif spurt of relatively strong finishes followed this name change, but the team soon lost this momentum and slipped back towards the middle of the table. In 2003, Koji Maeda, a veteran defender who played for many years at Avispa Fukuoka, returned home to support the team in an administrative role, and help it gain publicity. The same year, the team made it to the playoff round for JFL admission, but fell short in the playoff competition. After a few years battling it out near the top of the Kyu League, however, Volca found themselves being overtaken in the race to join the JFL. The team has aspired to promotion to the JFL for years, but never seem to make the jump to the next level, as Rosso Kumamoto, Honda Lock, FC Ryukyu and even Profesor Miyazaki have done in recent seasons. The momentum for a promotion bid seems to have gone dormant, for the time being, like the firey peak on nearby Sakurajima island. However, in 2004 Volca began taking steps to prepare for the more ambitious goal of entry to the J.League. Large debts incurred by the team have now been paid off in full, and the team plans to create an independent corporation in 2008, which would meet another of the requirements for J.League entry. The short-term goal is to earn promotion to the JFL (prior to 2008 according to the team's timetable), and following corporate reorganization in 2008, Volca hopes to begin climbing through the JFL ranks with the goal of J.League entry in 2010. Like many other teams that have set their sights on a J.League spot, this timetable seems unrealistic. Volca's 2006 squad looks capable of a top-half finish, but little more. However, like a slumbering volcano, there is no telling when Volca may rumble to life once again. Perhaps there will be another eruption in the team's future . . . but it is unlikely to happen this year.
Honda LockAdopting the name Honda Lock SC to go with their new status, 1997 again saw the team struggling to cope with Regional League football, but they recovered late in the year to finish in a respectable mid-table position. Over the next few seasons, the club performed solidly if unspectacularly in the Kyushu League, their most successful performance coming in 2000 when they finished second, a year after the club had received a boost via the putting into place of a more formalised relationship with their parent company. The club's 2004 promotion campaign therefore came out of the blue. Heading in to the last round of the season, they were still neck and neck at the top with hot favourites Okinawa Kariyushi, coached at that time by the legendary figure of Ruy Ramos. As is the Kyushu League's habit, the final two rounds of league fixtures were held in one city over a weekend and Honda Lock's 10 am kick-off in Kumamoto gave them a head start: they duly destroyed bottom club Osumi NIFS United 5-1. Kariyushi, meanwhile, had to stew until the afternoon and in a far tougher encounter they went down to a disastrous 2-0 defeat at the hands of third place Volca Kagoshima. Honda Lock were Kyushu League champions. In the subsequent Annual Nationwide Regional League Championship Tournament, the team brushed aside Kanazawa SC and Norbritz Hokkaido in the first round, putting Honda Lock just a step away from a place in the highest non-professional football league in Japan. The club faced off against Mitsubishi Mizushima from Okayama prefecture, Ryutsu Keizai University from Ibaraki and Saitama's Luminozo Sayama in the final round robin group, with the top two teams scheduled to win promotion. Following 2-2 draws against RKU and Luminozo in the opening two contests, Honda Lock lost a desperately tight match 1-0, to finish third in the group. Mizushima and RKU were automatically promoted, and it seemed that the impossible dream of reaching the JFL would vanish before their eyes. But just a few days later, Kokushikan University club were suddenly expelled from the league following a sordid scandal involving impropriety by a group of their players. Honda Lock were ushered into the JFL through the back door, though for the club, it was the chance of a lifetime. The 2005 campaign began with a dream fixture: away at Honda FC, the parent company's parent company, as it were. A 3-1 defeat heralded what was to be a difficult year. Despite the impressive performances of star midfielder Yoshihide Ogushi, they gathered just fifteen points from the season and finished in 17th place, above only Mitsubishi Mizushima. Not even the Emperor's Cup was able to give their fans much to shout about, as Lock crashed 7-0 to J1 giants Kashima Antlers. The club clearly paid the price for not making any improvements to the squad that had gained promotion from the Kyushu League. The 2006 season was no more successful, and this time Honda Lock were unable to escape a drop back into the Kyushu League. Although the size of the parent company offers Honda Lock a solid base of players who should manage to remain competitive in the Kyu League, in the current environment, with teams ambitiously chasing promotion to the J.League, a company club like Honda Lock will have a tough time making another run at promotion, as they did in 2004. It looks like the glory days for this team are over, for the time being at least.
Osumi NIFS United
Nippon Steel Oita
Kaiho Bank SC
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