World Championships in Yurihonjo

During the week of October 5th to October 11th, Yurihonjo played host to a sporting world championships. For those of you with some comprehension of the size and utter irrelevance of this inconsequential municipality, hearing this news for the first time must be fairly mindblowing. Treat yourself to a bit of a sit down if you need one. Make a cup of tea, and maybe try to guess the sport which will be awarding its ultimate honour in the Yurihonjo Gym this Saturday. Guessed?

Wrong!

It’s the 9th Women’s Roller Hockey World Championships! That’s right, if you like athletic women wearing shoes with wheels, wielding big sticks and sometimes shouting a bit, then right now, Yurihonjo is Mecca.

If I’m honest, (which I am), I was not overly excited by the prospect of the world championships of women’s roller hockey coming to a town near me. A sport I’d never heard of, played by a gender that had never truly accepted me as one of them, did not do much to kindle my interest. That said, the entertainment options in Honjo consist of A) drinking, B) getting naked at the onsen, and C) getting drunk and licking the school secretary on the cheek; so having explored all those avenues, a trip to see some world class women’s roller hockey was in order!

This was a somewhat surreal experience. Diverging slightly, in previous entries I may have touched on the fact that being a foreigner in Japan does get you noticed somewhat, particularly in the rural backwaters that constitute my prefecture. Children may scream and run away terrified, or stroll confidently up to you and shout “HELLO” as loud as they can. Adults will often stare entirely brazenly with a confused look on their face while I pick up fruit and veg at the supermarket, as if I was a well trained monkey doing an impressively accurate impression of a real person. There is however a very strange moment when, as a foreigner living in Japan, you realise that you are just as guilty of “gaijin spotting” as the locals. “Another foreigner, a foreigner I don’t know, in MY town?? えええええええええ？？？？ What travesty of nature is this??”

The roller hockey world championships were therefore a very strange taste of a multicultural world that had never before been visited upon Yurihonjo. 12 different countries from 5 different continents were represented, and we joined fans (unless Japan were playing this was mostly the friends and families) in the stands on most days of the competition. Japanese sporting crowds are very different from British ones, electing for repetitively chanting “Nihon! Nihon!” as opposed to baiting the Portuguese team with shouts of “who the fucking hell are you?!” I assume most of the crowd mirrored the attitude of my former headteacher towards me singing God Save The Queen at the top of my voice, as he asked in a concerned voice “are you drunk?”

My expectations were low but I have to say roller hockey is actually an excellent sport! Fast paced, violent enough to give even the odd dull game a touch of spice, and a good game is always gripping. It helped of course that during the course of the week I alleviated Owen’s wallet of 2500 yen due to the famous Irish trait of being rubbish at predicting women’s roller hockey results. During the course of the tournament the main points of interest were as follows. The sexiest ladies were the Portugal Number 8 and the Spanish number 7, The best legs on display were the fine efforts of the South African and Macau team, while the award for most needlessly tight uniforms (an award crucial at any women’s sporting event) goes to Chile!! Chauvinism aside, an inexperienced English team finished a respectable 8th, with Spain coming back from a goal down against Portugal in the final to claim a deserved victory, and crucially lift yet another 1000 yen note from Owen’s pocket. Victory is so sweet.