Dissolved 1999 Ground Kitakyushu | League Kyushu Football League Founded 1950 | |
Full name Nippon Steel Yawata Soccer Club | ||
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.
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History
Yawata Steel S.C. was 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 eight 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 !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. The 1999 season was the last with Nippon Steel Yawata in the Kyushu league.
In 2007, New Wave Kitakyushu !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.