Nippon Steel Yawata S.C.

Nippon Steel Yawata

Full name	Nippon Steel Yawata Soccer Club
Founded	1950 (as Yawata Steel)
Dissolved	1999
Ground	Sayagatani Stadium Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, Japan
Home colours Away colours

Nippon Steel Yawata Soccer Club (新日本製鐵八幡サッカー部 Shin-Nihon Seitetsu Yawata Sakkā-Bu) was a Japanese football club based in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture.

History

Yawata Steel S.C. was originally founded in 1950 as the works team of the Yawata Steel company, which in 1970 merged with Fuji Steel to become Nippon Steel. During the 1960s the club provided the Japan national football team with many quality players which strengthened the squad for the 1964 and 1968 Olympic tournaments.

Yawata Steel was one of the original 8 clubs that founded the Japan Soccer League in 1965, and building on its Emperor's Cup win, it was runner-up to Toyo Industries (now Sanfrecce Hiroshima) in 1965 and 1966.

In 1981, however, after an uneventful decade in which the club did not win any honours nor was in danger of relegation, Nippon Steel was relegated to Division 2 and never played top flight football again. In 1990 they were relegated yet again, this time leaving the JSL for good after 26 seasons. They thus joined the Kyushu Football League.

1999 was the last season of Nippon Steel Yawata in the Kyushu league.

In 2007, New Wave Kitakyushu, formerly part of Mitsubishi Chemical, assumed the mantle of representative of Kitakyushu in the national football leagues by earning promotion to the Japan Football League.

Name

• 1950-1970 Yawata Steel SC
• 1970-1991 Nippon Steel SC
• 1991-1999 Nippon Steel Yawata SC

Titles

• Emperor's Cup : 1964 (shared with Furukawa Electric).

Notable players

• Masashi Watanabe
• Teruki Miyamoto
• Nobuyuki Oishi
• Hiroshi Saeki
• Kiyoshi Tomizawa
• Masahiro Hamazaki
• Yuji Kishioku
• Hisao Kami
• Masafumi Yokoyama

Sister clubs

• Nippon Steel Oita S.C.
• Nippon Steel Kamaishi S.C.
• Nippon Steel Muroran S.C.