Team personnel and fans of football and rugby can get pretty upset when their home pitch is used for different sports and thus “ruined” by different markings and types of game play. Whilst many multiple-sports venues exist in Japan, there are also plenty of stadiums principally used for a solitary sport.

One such example is the Prince Chichibu Memorial Rugby Ground (a.k.a. Chichibunomiya Stadium) in Tokyo’s Minato Ward. Apart from

Whilst this venue switch is far removed from the controversial idea of the Super Bowl taking place in London one day (Britain’s ambassador made a pitch recently to bring the showpiece event to the UK), there are some (minor and quite tenuous!) similarities such as one sports arena hosting a different ball game and two teams from a different area having to travel across borders to play it!!

Japan is full of letter based leagues (J-League, V-League, B-League, T. League etc etc) and on this occasion at Chichibunomiya it was the X-League which is the country’s top-level professional gridiron football league celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2025. It is also 40 years since the Japan Amateur American Football Association (JAFA) was founded. 

This was the opening game of the new X-League season, and the first one to ever be played at Tokyo’s home of rugby but it certainly wasn’t my American football debut! Far from it as I lost my gridiron cherry a couple of years ago in Kawasaki when I watched a clash between Asahi Beer Silver Star and Hosei Orange Football which lent itself to some nice silver versus orange promotion.

That was just an exhibition match, and at the end of my post about that experience I said “I would be happy to one day see an actual X-League fixture to see what a proper match is like” so that time came just over two years later for this history-making contest between  Kawasaki-based Fujitsu Frontiers and their Kanagawa rivals Fujifilm Ebina Minerva AFC.

In the first few months of each year I cycle down to Chichibunomiya Stadium on Friday evenings quite often to see Japan Rugby League One matches so everything felt like normal for me until I arrived and could see a fair amount of X-League signage as well as many fans in American football shirts.

As it turned out, those green shirts being worn by many were being given out for free and I managed to get one too. I got talking to a young staff member near the stall giving them away and he very kindly said he’d get one for me which saved me waiting in line too. He didn’t seem too concerned either by whether or not I actually had a ticket for the game!

It really was far busier than I ever thought it would be with a fan-zone full of food and drink, merchandise stands and photo opps as well a seating area and some activities like throwing the American football through holes of different point value. In that sense it wasn’t too different from the Friday Night Rugby games but there seemed a buzz in the air …..and I’m not talking about the bees flying around! The anticipation was building as it was probably the first taste of live gridiron action for the majority in attendance.

My ticket was actually for the main stand but having sold my soul in return for a free Minerva shirt I had to sit in the back stand. As long as it’s not raining hard that is actually my preferred option though as I believe looking at the main stand offers a better view.

The game kicked off at 7:05 pm and I really do wonder how much of the crowd in the 27,000 seat stadium really knew what was going on! I certainly didn’t!

Due to the obvious physicality involved as well as the ball shape, both American football and rugby have similarities but on this occasion my senses were finding it difficult to adjust to the differences, particularly the constant stop-go cycle of play for each of the four 12 minute quarters.

The huge size of the squad and all the other team personnel on the sidelines had me confused throughout but it was interesting in a way to absorb such tactical play which is  vastly different to what I call football!

With the constant changing of players it was hard to really keep up with it all at times but what was obvious was the different levels of the teams, as was most apparant by my new team’s ability to even get close to scoring a touchdown! “We” will go again next time though hoping for a more positive outcome!

The same fixture last season was attended by about 400 people, and whilst an official attendance figure was not given, it is estimated that holding such a spectacle at Chichibunomiya had around ten times that amount. I’m sure the X-League will want to capitalise on that and start playing games at Tokyo’s rugby mecca a bit more often.

Final Score: Fujitsu Frontiers 37-0 Fujifilm Ebina Minerva AFC