 | This articledoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved. Find sources: "Nippon Steel Yawata SC" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(November 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Full name | Nippon Steel Yahata Soccer Club | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Nickname | Nippon Yahata | ||
| Short name | Yahata Steel | ||
| Founded | 1950 (asYahata Steel) | ||
| Dissolved | 1999 | ||
| Ground | Sayagatani Stadium Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, Japan | ||
| League | Kyushu Football League | ||
Nippon Steel Yahata Soccer Club (新日本製鐵八幡サッカー部Shin-Nihon Seitetsu Yahata Sakkā-Bu) was a Japanesefootball club based inKitakyushu,Fukuoka Prefecture.
Yahata Steel S.C. was founded in 1950 as theworks team of theYahata Steel company, which in 1970 merged withFuji Steel to becomeNippon Steel. During the 1960s the club provided theJapan national football team with many quality players which strengthened the squad for the1964 and1968Olympic tournaments.
Yahata Steel was one of the original eight clubs that founded theJapan Soccer League (JSL) in1965 ("Original Eight"[a]), and building on its Emperor's Cup win in 1964, it was runner-up of theJSL to Toyo Industries (currentSanfrecce Hiroshima) in1965 and1966. 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 theKyushu Soccer League. The 1999 season was the last with Nippon Steel Yahata in the Kyushu league.
In 2007, New Wave Kitakyushu (currentGiravanz Kitakyushu), formerly part ofMitsubishi Chemical, assumed the mantle of representative ofKitakyushu in the national football leagues by earning promotion to theJapan Football League.
