These days the people behind club social media accounts always seem to be thinking of interesting and creative ways to market fixtures whether it’s based on geography, personnel who have represented both teams, kit colours (the orange/green/purple derby etc.), similar sounding names (Kashiwa and Kashima), anagrams (Tokyo & Kyoto) and so on. I decided to get in on the act too by creating a hashtag for my own special day of events.

For a couple of months now I’d had an early evening football match featuring Shimizu S-Pulse earmarked for attendance. Then, a bit more recently I became aware of a rugby match taking place earlier the same afternoon and a short time later I realised that I could easily go to both as they were taking place quite literally just down the road from one another. Two different sports on the same day and both of the “home” teams play in the same colour. Not only that but they were both giving out free baseball-style jerseys on entry to the stadiums. The lightbulb came on in my head, and the result was this heavily ironic #OrangeDay.

It wasn’t just to be the live sporting action though as I had a few other lame-assed, orange-related ideas up my sleeve and so the big day (Sunday 24th May) kicked off with a glass of orange juice whilst wearing the shirt of what is perhaps the most famous team to wear that colour. The Netherlands 1988 shirt is probably their most iconic one but I preferred the more subtle and simple Euro 2000 one.

Trying to look as normal as possible!

A few hours later I cycled down to Japan National Stadium which has recently been renamed as MUFG Stadium due to sponsorship reasons.

Having parked in my usual secret place, I then wandered through the area around the stadium which was already heaving with S-Pulse fans despite kick off still being about 3.5 hours away!

It doesn’t look busy here but it really was elsewhere!

Five minutes away on foot is Chichibunomiya Rugby Stadium, the iconic home of the sport in Tokyo. For once it was actually quite subdued outside the stadium which usually offers a festival-like atmosphere. I was given a pretty nice orange Spears shirt on entry and then I made my way round to the back stand ahead of the 2:30 pm kick-off.

This was a quarter final play-off final match between Kubota Spears (3rd) and Toshiba Brave Lupus (6th) with a semi-final place up for grabs against Saitama Wild Knights who finished second in the Japan Rugby League One championship.

In the past, Kobe Steelers would just have been crowned champions for finishing top but these days the team that finished sixth have a chance to win it too! Thankfully, for the integrity of the game, Spears were the better team in what was actually a quite lackluster contest.

I provided a couple of extra, orange-based treats just to keep up the tenuous theme of the day!

Final Score: Kubota Spears 26-3 Toshiba Brave Lupus

With the match as good as over I left just before the end to walk on over to the National Stadium which was only about five minutes away on foot. I had arranged to meet Gamba Osaka fan (and J-Talk podcast co-host) Jonny for a quick chat ahead of the 5:00 pm kick off.

Sadly, I was too late to get one of the free S-Pulse shirts being given out to the first 40,000 people to enter the stadium. A bit annoying for me as that was one reason for going to this match but maybe it was a blessing in disguise as I possess way too many sporting jerseys!

The J-League is migrating to a European-style season this year after the FIFA World Cup, so the first half of 2026 has seen the introduction of the interim 100-Year Vision League which was split into two regions. The East Region includes the clubs in the Greater Tokyo area whilst the West side was far more spread out geographically taking in the 10 teams located between Shizuoka and Kyushu, Japan’s most southern main island.

This tie between Shimizu S-Pulse and Gamba Osaka was a West match being played in the east and the first half was pretty dull. Still, it was a really good atmosphere with both sets of fans behind the goals in fine voice. Thankfully, the second half was a big improvement with not only a few goals but some other good chances too which kept the record-breaking crowd of 53,439 entertained.

Final Score: Shimizu S-Pulse 1-2 Gamba Osaka

So that was my self-created #OrangeDay 2026. It was certainly nothing political and was basically just a guy drinking some juice, wearing some orange shirts and watching two different sports teams that both play in the same colour! As sad as it was, it did make the day more interesting for me, and I guess I’ll now try and think up an equally tenuous theme for a future day of live sporting action!

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