Kangaroo FC’s Kids Turn Hops Into Large Leaps

The littlest joeys from the Kangaroo FC youth soccer club in the Chiba Prefecture bed town of Matsudo have won regional tournaments, going from tiny hops to large leaps befitting the team’s monicker.

Kangaroo FC’s team of first graders have taken home the Yachiyo Okamura Cup in the past.

Kangaroo FC has been around since 1981 and looks to be a youth team powerhouse.

Nor do I know why a club from a city best known for being a bed town community for commuters to the capital chose to be the kangaroos.

It’s possible the team chose the kangaroo because it evokes jumping, speed, and protecting younger players.

And the club shares its motif with Australia itself, whose national soccer team is called the Socceroos. Kangaroo FC operates boys’ and girls’ age-based teams from kindergarten through to U-12.

The teams compete in leagues operated by the Matsudo Football Association, as well as in regional youth tournaments.

Cop A Gander At These Rippers Too...

  • | |

    Venerable Kangaroo Bakery Jumps At Its Chances

    Kangaroo is a small, and well-liked bakery in Kawasaki that has been operating for 38 years and has grown more recently to include a cafe, gallery space and architectural office, all in the same building called House Kangaroo. Kangaroo bakes natural yeast, organic flour breads, and sells weekend-only loaves and sandwiches, but also accepts reservations for bread as its products frequently sell out fast. Adjacent to Kangaroo is roo cafe, which opens only on Fridays and Saturdays, selling an array of beverages and treats. In the same building is roo space, which is a rentable gallery and pop-up space area used for exhibitions, shows and workshops. Architectural firm On is…

  • Packing a Roo in the Days of Pac-Man

    Kangaroo was a mildly successful arcade video game released in 1982. Launched in the same year was the phenomenally successful Pac-Man and notorious Custer’s Revenge. Kangaroo also came out in the same year as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (video game), the flop largely blamed for the video game industry crash of 1983. Kangaroo required players to take on the role of a mother roo who dodged falling fruits and punched primates to rescue her joey, who had been stolen by the monkeys. The game started as an arcade game before Atari made versions for its 2600 and 5200 game consoles. The game was also later adapted for a children’s cartoon. Kangaroo…

  • Affection, Trust, Speed And Dynamism Behind Japan’s Most Famous Kangaroo Logo

    Of the surprisingly numerous Japanese entities that choose to use a kangaroo for their corporate logo, Seino Holdings Co. Ltd. is probably the best known. Seino Transportation Co. Ltd., the core company of the group, operates trucks adorned with a kangaroo logo that traverse Japan as one of the country’s largest logistics companies. They make kangaroos a daily sight throughout Japan. Seino provides a variety of services around the theme of Kangaroo Deliveries, such as Kangaroo Express and Kangaroo Home Delivery. Seino, based in Ogaki, Gifu Prefecture, was founded in 1930 and has a kangaroo logo since 1960. Seino’s corporate site says the choice of a kangaroo derives from its…

  • |

    Up There, Kazari!

    Australian Sports Day was a fantastic event held at Komazawa Olympic Park yesterday, and I got to go and enjoy some of the proceedings that were a decorative display, (or should I say kazari?), of some of Down Under’s favorite pastimes. The day itself was a ripper, starting with explanations, demonstrations and games of cricket, moving on to games of footy and then ending with a netball exhibition, with sales of Aussie foods, wear and fare such as meat pies and banana bread and cuppas from Club Australia‘s Tad Watanabe and the Australia Cafe van. Needing to deal with duties in the garden and home and able to enjoy lunch…

  • |

    Kanagawa Kangaroo Wants Clients To Leap, Not Lounge

    Kangaroo K.K.–a Yokohama startup named after Australia’s national animal–wants its clients to “bound, not lounge.” And it even picks office scents to help them. Kangaroo says it chose its company name and symbol because the kangaroo is a model of efficient, powerful leaping using the ground’s force with physiology that lets it “jump far while consuming less energy.” The company says it chose the name because it wants clients to “use us to leap forward”–operating more efficiently and achieving big bounds in performance. Kangaroo provides recruitment and job-placement services, franchise setup and operational support, digital marketing and branding services, and consulting. Kaori Aoi, who has a fine academic and business…