The matchday football experience in Japan (or anywhere else for that matter!) can be an expensive one. Not only is there the cost of the ticket but then transportation has to be considered, and then there is maybe some food, drink and merchandise on top of that. It can all add up, especially for families, but I wanted to see if it was possible to do it all without spending any money at all!

Whilst I personally find it easy to not spend any money on food and drink at games, there’s no denying that you can’t avoid paying for a match ticket and the train and/or bus fare. Sometimes I’m able to get one or the other for free but never both. However, this time  Summit supermarket (the sponsor of Sfida Setagaya) were giving away tickets the day before, and their number one gaijin supporter Marcus picked up a pair of tickets for us. 

As for transportation, walking definitely wasn’t an option as it would’ve taken 3.5 hours! The only thing to do was cycle there which was good for my health on the back of a six-day holiday in Shizuoka. The boiling hot 33 degrees heat climate was not so ideal though for a 70 minute (one way) bicycle ride!

When the fixtures were released back in February, Marcus suggested I join him for a few Sfida Setagaya home games in the Nadeshiko League which is the second tier for women’s football in Japan. Most home games take place at AGF Field in Chofu or Nishigaoka in Koto Ward but the one that caught my eye was at Komazawa Olympic Park Stadium which is a place I’ve been trying to visit for a few years now. A mix of Covid_19, limited matches (both football and rugby) and unlucky scheduling for me meant I have been unable to go there until now. It’s been a long wait! 

The Tokyo Olympics referenced in the title of this post is not the recent troubled one which took place in 2021 after they were initially postponed the year before. No, I am talking about the 1964 games where the preliminary rounds of the Olympic football competition were held at this 20,010 seater stadium. A few years after that, Komazawa Park could be briefly seen in the background of a car chase in the James Bond movie ‘You Only Live Twice‘ (1967).

As I went to park my bicycle opposite the stadium at the arena where I watched the JFA Japan Futsal Championships a few months earlier, I decided to top up my bottles from a water fountain and honestly thought that would be all I’d be able to get for free. How wrong I was!!

No sooner had I entered the stadium, and my newspaper coupon was exchanged for a match ticket which came with a free programme, clapper and fan. That was the merchandise side of things covered then but none of that was too much of a surprise as the clappers, in particular, are often given out at matches in Japan.

Mini sized bowls of ramen were also being given out (along with a free notebook) so I grabbed one and promptly burned my tongue! No pain no gain I guess!

The next stall had samples of Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki so that was next for me. It was being advertised as 1/6 size but I’m not sure about that at all! Still, you can’t look a gift horse in the mouth!

As for refreshments, green fruit smoothie bottles were being handed out too. I actually collected four of them (one for Marcus, one to take home for my wife and two for me!) prior to the game and at half time, and they really were quite delicious.

Meeting a player was a massive bonus and by pure luck it turned out to be the only one I knew of as Marcus recommended I follow defender Ayumi Toda on social media last year. She is indeed fairly prolific on Instagram, and nearly all of it is her stuffing food into her mouth! She’s out with an injury at the moment so was not involved in the usual pre-match warm-up and so on. I saw that she was hanging out near a photo stand where fans could choose a player they wanted a selfie with albeit just a digital creation. However, as she was around I was able to get a photo with both the real and digital version which she then signed for me.

The architecture of the main stand was one of the main draws for me wanting to see a game at this historic stadium. The half-dozen concrete roofed sections may be from the early 1960s but it still looks fairly modern six decades later. The rest of the stadium is fairly nondescript and sadly that was our view during the match! Only the main stand was open for business so I couldn’t go round the other side to photograph the main stand from that side.

Match details will remain very light (if non-existant!) as sadly there really was not much going on. The only goal of the game came in the first half, and it was no surprise when it ended that way as the home team just never looked like troubling the Yokohama goalkeeper. The freebies, sunshine, atmosphere and great banter cushioned the blow of Setagaya’s performance on the field on what was a great matchday.

Final Score: Sfida Setagaya 0-1 Nippatsu Yokohama FC Seagulls

At full time there was still the small matter of having to cycle the 17 kilometres home, and I went a different way just for the sake of making the map below look a bit more interesting!

Bonus: I had only seen Sfida Setagaya play a home game at AGF Field in Chofu a fortnight earlier. The same fixture 12 months earlier was where I first met Marcus but the 6-0 thrashing on that day was definitely not matched this time, and indeed Sfida were hanging on at the end as the Osaka based team came close to equalising a few times. 

Click here to read ‘My First Time To Watch Futsal In Japan But Will It Be My Last?’ 

Click here to read ‘The “Other” Olympic Museum In Tokyo’

Click here to read ‘Interesting Japanese Playground Structures #28 – Pig Park’

Click here to read ‘Foxed In The Head: Cycling To All Inari Shrines In Tokyo’s 23 Wards – #21 Setagaya’