One thing worth bearing in mind is something that you touch upon right at the beginning of the article - the importance as far as the J-League is concerned of there being some kind of cultural space between football and baseball. You comment upon the supposed contrasts in the players’ behaviour and appearance, but when the J-League started, right at the top of the list of requirements for clubs wanting to join the new league was that they abandon their old company name - and instead choose a handle that would serve, in some way or another, to ground them within the context of their local community.

Some clubs clearly took this idea to heart and were keen to take on a name that reflected one or more significant aspects of their home towns. This goes some way towards explaining the background for such apparently strange choices as Nagoya Grampus 8, Sanfrecce Hiroshima and Consadole Sapporo (if they had kept their corporate names, they would have been called simply Toyota, Mazda and Toshiba).

Interestingly, however, this trait has spread further down the Japanese football pyramid as well. The J-League as a general policy is keen to expand the number of members (i.e. professional clubs) across the country as far as possible and, this being the case, over the last few years a growing number of semi-pro and amateur teams have emerged who are explicitly targeting a J-League place in the not-too-distant future.

With this in mind, part of the attempts of such clubs to establish and develop the required fanbase at grassroots has frequently included the adoption of a colourful name which - as per Mito Hollyhock or Kyoto Sanga - acknowledges some part of their area’s cultural history. To find examples, you have only to look at a list of teams that won the nine Regional Leagues in 2006.

V Varen Nagasaki took the title in Kyushu, their name taking its cue from the status of Nagasaki as the sole city in Japan that had contact with two main groups of Westerners during the 250 years of the country’s self-imposed isolation: the V stands for the Portuguese word for “victory” - “vitoria” - while “varen” is Dutch for “to go”. At the other end of the country, Norbritz Hokkaido used to be known as plain old Hokkaido Electric Power before adopting their altogether more dynamic moniker - a corruption of the German words for “northern lightning”.

Elsewhere, on Shikoku island it has to be acknowledged that Kamatamare Sanuki’s name caused some considerable amusement among non-league fans when it was first announced prior to the 2006 season (they were previously known rather unimaginatively as Takamatsu FC). It contains references not only to the famously beautiful coastline of the club’s home prefecture, Kagawa, but also to that part of the country’s best-known culinary delicacy: sanuki udon noodles. One additional curiosity to have emerged from this is that fact that the club’s badge is perhaps the only one in the world to incorporate a likeness of a cooked foodstuff.

To finish, though, with a team that have their roots in a representative club for teachers living in working in Yamaguchi prefecture at the far southern tip of Honshu. The Prefectural FA gave its full support to the idea of basing upon the old Yamaguchi Teachers side a club that would effectively act as their local J-League franchise - should they ever be able to rise that far up the footballing pyramid.

Not surprisingly, the FA immediately started casting around for possible names for the venture and an invitation for suggestions resulted in more than 600 proposals coming in from all over the country. In all honesty, the winning idea fails to tick the box marked Local Cultural Icon, but it does without question have the advantage of uniqueness. Renofa Yamaguchi is one of those names that at first seems particularly difficult to get to grips with - until, that is, you learn that “Renofa” is an amalgamation of the English words “renovation”, “fine” and “fight”. Now that’s something that local fans can surely get right behind.