When it comes to sporting interest in the city of Hiroshima, the baseball team get the lion’s share of news coverage. The men’s J1 football club Sanfrecce have had numerous successes in the last decade, but they do live in the shadows of their less successful baseball counterparts. The next most popular side in the region is the basketball team but I had never been able to get a ticket on previous visits when I’ve tried. This time my preparation wouldn’t let me down!

As soon as I knew we’d be in Hiroshima during Golden Week (the Spring national holiday season) I immediately booked both baseball and basketball tickets. At that stage I wasn’t even aware if I could attend either but I have to get them straight away as they tend to sell out. It is admittedly a bit of a risk but at just 2,000-2,200 yen per ticket it is one I’m happy to take.

My original plan was to attend the final match of the season on Sunday 3rd May. However, I then shuffled my plans round a bit so that I could go to Kitakyushu on that date. Subsequently, I just bought another ticket for the previous day’s game and had to suck up the loss on the other ticket.

In terms of tickets, watching basketball in Japan is a bit of a ball ache. The QR codes do not get sent to your e-mail account (as is done for football and rugby) and you have to use an app which can’t be downloaded on my phone unless I change my Apple ID settings from the UK to Japan. As a result, I have to borrow my wife’s smartphone for a few hours. It really is a hassle and must discourage many potential fans from attending games.

Luckily for me, the venue was located within reasonable walking distance of my parents-in-law’s apartment. Having arrived right on the tip-off for my last few basketball games, I decided to bounce on down to Hiroshima Sun Plaza Hall in Nishi-ku with time to spare this time.

Hiroshima Sun Plaza

Hiroshima Dragonflies were actually the first team I ever saw play a basketball game when I saw them take on Yokohama B-Corsairs in the B1-B2 Play Off Final match back in 2017 at Yoyogi Gymnasium. Nine years on and Dragonflies are a B1 team and even won the championship two years ago. On this occasion, they were playing their penultimate game of the Western Conference season against strugglers Toyama Grouses.

Maybe the two most interesting things for me to notice on entry to the arena was that Dragonflies’ vest sponsor was the disgraced English conversation school Nova which originally went bankrupt in 2007.

They also had a foreign player called Nick Mayo which sounded more like a verb than a name to me!

The venue itself can hold around 6,000 people but it wasn’t quite full so I needn’t have panicked so much regarding my ticket purchases a month earlier.

Posters were dotted around the place stating that video recordings couldn’t be longer than 15 seconds. Not exactly something that can really be monitored though! Personally, I don’t understand why people do record huge chunks of sports matches (as well as concerts and so on) on their phones!

When I bought my online ticket, I chose the cheapest area and selected my seat in the centre which in hindsight was an amateur mistake as it meant my view was partially obscured by the net and backboard.

Luckily, it was easy enough to wander round the whole venue and view the game from various standing points.

No game of basketball (or indeed most sports in Japan) is complete without some cheerleading during any pause in play. The Dragonflies group of cheerleaders are known as D*Flare.

As ever with this sport it was really fast paced and end to end with points being scored very often. It was difficult for me to keep up although the time-outs and breaks did offer some respite for everyone.

It was a closely fought contest, but the away team were just that little bit more clinical with their shots. For me, it’s nice to say that I’ve finally seen Hiroshima’s main three (men’s) sporting teams in live action although fans of the local volleyball team may have something to say about that! I’ll try and see them at some point though.

Final Score: Hiroshima Dragonflies 89-96 Toyama Grouses

Bonus: Two months earlier I went to my first basketball game of the year as I managed to get a free ticket for a second division game between Yokohama Excellence and Fukui Blowinds at Buntai Yokohama, an arena I’d never been to before.

I actually got a pair of free tickets but couldn’t find anyone to join me so went alone on a rainy Japanese national holiday. I thought the tip-off was at 5:30 pm and that the game was taking place at Yokohama Budokan so was quite surprised when I checked the details on my way to Japan’s second largest city. I discovered it was at Buntai and starting at 5:05 pm!

Having arrived just as it started, I looked for a vacant seat but just could not find one. Consequently, the staff took me and a few others down to court level at one of the ends where I was given a seat amongst the away fans. My vantage point wasn’t so great for my neck at times, but it brought me as close to the action as I am ever likely to get.

It was a wonderful atmosphere and turned out to be an absolutely fantastic match which was won by the visiting team in the final second.

Final Score: Yokohama Excellence 97-98 Fukui Blowinds

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