The Bonding of People from the Same District through Sport Spectatorship

The purpose of this study is to describe how a supporters' association backing a visiting team of professional baseball has been organized. This study discusses the “Kinki Carp Booster Club, ” and the “Kinki Association of People from Hiroshima Prefecture” from which the former was born. This fan club, located in the large city of Osaka, supports the Hiroshima Carp baseball team whose “home town” is the smaller city of Hiroshima. The creation of the Kinki Hiroshima Booster Club can be traced back to a fellowship which, symbolized by the “Hiroshima Carp, ” is shared by people who had moved from Hiroshima to urban areas in the Kinki District during the postwar economic growth period. They wanted to affirm an important reality in their life by making this team's first championship victory in 1975 an extension of their personal experience of leaving Hiroshima to work in Osaka. The dream of such a victory was not a personal but a communal ideal that was shared by people from the same province. The symbolism of the hometown was not only tied to the building of the individual's identity but connected with the formation of the collective identity of people from the same district. However, since the late 1970's people who were not originally form Hiroshima Prefecture have also started to join the Booster Club. Since the sport-cheering section that had symbolic functions of maintaining the Kinki Association of People from Hiroshima Prefecture was independent of the association as a booster club, a nodal organ that does not have any relationship with the bonding of people from the same district has come to coexist in the club.