Mito HollyHock

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Mito HollyHock
水戸ホーリーホック

Full name

Football Club Mito HollyHock Ibaraki

Nickname(s)

HollyHock, FC Mito

Founded

1990

Ground

Kasamatsu Stadium
Naka, Ibaraki

Capacity

22,022

Chairman

Hiroshi Kobayashi

Manager

Hideki Maeda(2003-)

League

J. League Div.2

2006

10th Place





Home colours





Away colours

Mito HollyHock (水戸ホーリーホック, Mito Hōrīhokku^?) is a Japanese professional football (soccer) club, currently playing in the J-league Division 2. The team's hometown is located in Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture.

Its nickname "HollyHock" derives from the family crest of the Tokugawa clan who governed from Mito in the Edo period.

1 History
2 Strategy
3 2007 Roster
4 Yearly Results
5 Notable former players
6 Images
7 External links
8 Japanese Professional Football

[edit] History

The club was founded in 1990 as Prima Aseno FC by the factory workers of Prima Ham (a food company) in Tsuchiura. It changed its name to Prima Ham FC Tsuchiura and gained promotion to the Japan Football League after finishing as runner-up in the 1996 Regional League play-off. It merged with FC Mito (founded in 1994) and re-branded itself as Mito HollyHock before the start of the 1997 season when Prima Ham decided to discontinue its financial support to the club.

Mito's application to play in the inaugural 1999 season of J. League Division 2 was initially turned down due to an unstable financial and fan base. However, after finishing 3rd in the Japan Football League in 1999 and gaining support, the club was invited into the J. League in 2000.

[edit] Strategy

Being a traditionally weak club in the league, Mito has tended to play a defensive game and has proven successful at it. This stinginess at the back is often referred to as "Mito-nachio" after the Catenaccio playing style, which is also a pun on the hometown's local specialty, Mito natto.

Recently, though, the team has been implementing new, strong offensive tactics. After a string of losses in the second half of the 2006 season in the transition, the team began seeing great improvement, including a surprising 4-1 away win against Tokyo Verdy 1969. Should this success continue, the team's tactical ability will have incorporated strength at both ends of the field for the first time. Although the team finished in the bottom half of the league in 2006 as in previous years, many players and coaches in the league mention Mito as a strong contender to steadily gain in standing and enter Division 1 in the coming seasons.

[edit] 2007 Roster

No.	Position	Player
1	GK	Koji Honma
2	MF	Fukutaro Shino
3	DF	Daishi Hiramatsu
4	DF	Kazuhiro Suzuki
5	DF	Shinya Hatta
6	MF	Shohei Ogura
7	MF	Jun Muramatsu
8	FW	Edinaldo
9	FW	Takaaki Suzuki
10	MF	Kim Dong-Chan
11	FW	Shogo Shiozawa
13	MF	Takuya Shiihara
14	DF	Takafumi Yoshimoto
15	MF	Naoya Ohashi
16	MF	Junya Kimura

No.	Position	Player
17	MF	Hiromasa Kanazawa
18	MF	Kim Ki-Su
19	FW	Kohei Nishino
20	DF	Takashi Kuramoto
21	GK	Hiroyuki Takeda
22	MF	Kenichi Mori
23	FW	Keisuke Endo
24	MF	Jun Shimanuki
25	MF	Yoshikazu Suzuki
27	FW	Yuya Iwadate
29	MF	Kazuhiko Shingyoji
30	DF	Hideyuki Nakamura
31	GK	Yoshinobu Harada
32	DF	Masashi Owada

[edit] Yearly Results

Year	League	Matches	Points	Wins	Losses	Draws	League Placement	Coach	Award
1997	Former JFL	30	10	4	26	―	16th	Yuji Nakano	―
1998	Former JFL	30	23	8	22	―	14th	Toshiya Miura	―
1999	JFL	24	45	16	8	0	3rd	Hiroshi Ninomiya	Promotion to J2
2000	J League Div. 2	40	43	15	21	4	9th	Babichi Blanco	―
2001		44	25	8	32	4	11th	Hiroshi Kobayashi／Masaaki Kanno	―
2002		44	40	11	26	7	10th	Masaaki Kanno	―
2003		44	56	15	18	11	7th	Hideki Maeda	―
2004		44	37	6	19	19	9th		―
2005		44	52	13	18	13	10th		―
2006		48	51	14	25	9	10th		―