As the world continues to look on in disbelief at the tragic events in Asia, Keiko Hirano - Secretary of the Japanese branch of the Official Liverpool Supporters Club - has sent us this letter to share with Reds fans everywhere.
Dear Liverpool supporters,
We have had so many messages from Liverpool FC and fans from Liverpool and all over the world. It is very nice to know that we are not walking alone and many Japanese fans have said over recent days that we definitely chose the right team to follow.
Our branch was founded in February 1995, so we are now 16 years old. We started with just 28 members and have gradually increased the number with 80 at the end of the calender year 2010.
With the Premier League, football's popularity has increased so much and we heard that there must be millions of Liverpool fans in Japan, so we decided to recruit more members to our Supporters Club by increasing awareness of our existence as the Official Supporters Club, by planning more frequent activities within the Club and by increasing membership benefits.
It was just in December 2010 that we started recruiting more fans. We then went to Liverpool for the Wolves and Bolton fixtures as an annual trip to Anfield. We met with Scott Richardson, Head of CRM, to discuss our plan.
Since then we have been working hard to fulfil our objective, with huge help from Scott and other staff at Liverpool FC. We have had more than 30 applications for membership so far in the year 2011, and 11 of the 30 have completed registering. So, we have 91 members in the membership list now.
All of our members are fanatical. Our time is 9 hours ahead of GMT, which means a normal 3pm kick-off game starts at 24:00 here in Japan, not very convenient for watching a football game. Let alone all Sunday games. Still, most of us watch nearly all Liverpool games live on television. For nearly all Saturday games, particularly early-kick offs, we watch it at the pub together with other members of the Supporters Club, as well as other fans and regulars of the pub.
As one of our annual events we go to Anfield, flying thousands of miles from Japan to show our allegiance to the team. Normally only five or six members can go every year, though, although everybody who wishes to go could do if they can afford the cost of journey.
We have a futsal team within the Supporters Club. The number of the players in the squad is now more than 20. We train once a month in Yokohama. Usually after training we go to the pub in Tokyo to watch a Liverpool game together. The futsal team participated in a competition sponsored by Virgin Atlantic and Standard Chartered Bank on the 5th of March. We reached the last 16 and won the 'Enjoy award'. The winners won the tickets for Liverpool-Aston Villa. We didn't win it, but we enjoyed the futsal. In the end we were happy with the final outcome and everything looked bright. More and more applications for the membership were flying in and we were expecting to get a huge number of new members in the Supporters Club soon.
This was six days before the tsunami.
Then there was the earthquake in the afternoon on 11th March. Though the tsunami hit the north-east coast of the Sea of Japan alone, the earthquake occured everywhere in Japan so everybody knew instantly something was happening.
In and around Tokyo trains were stopped and lots of people had to stay at their office overnight. Tokyo was not very close to the worst affected area, though, huge numbers of people were somewhat affected by the earthquake immediately after it happened.
When we started trying to contact the members in the evening of the 11th March, the telephone communication was cut off. Therefore, we couldn't talk to anybody. Nobody knew what happened to the others. So we posted messages on the members' forums and sent emails to all the members. Only a few replied because the majority were in trouble and couldn't access internet or a mobile phone.
Talking about the Tokyo area, we have 17 more members from Tokyo whom we have not heard from yet. We believe the 17 may be all right, but they may still be in difficulty with trains, telephones and power cuts. That's why they have not been able to contact us yet. We really hope that is the case.
We have 2 members in Sendai, both of them we have found and they are all right. Sendai was the area directly hit by the tsunami as you may well know. One of the two, YOSHINORI ITO sent a message to us on 12th March saying he and his family were all right. He had been working hard to help refugees while fighting against the difficulties. His message: "We can overcome this hardship with the spirit of 'You'll Never Walk Alone'.
Another member, SHOMA ITO, sent a message to us only yesterday, 22:52 on Monday. He had had no electricity until then, he still had no water though. He and hes family were all right. He didn't have his house washed away. We were very relieved with this news.
We have one member in Fukushima, where the nuclear reactor is. Fortunately we could contact him in the very early stage. The area he lives is a bit distant from the nuclear reactor, so we assume he is still all right, though, we will again talk to him.
We have some in Ibaraki, one of those serious areas. We now know all but one are all right, and they are still suffering a water cut, electricity cut, very limited internet access and other problems. Katsumi Kashimura, the vice-secretary of the supporters club, is one of them. His message, which was sent via mobile phone on Sunday: "I am staying at home so I am all right. All my family are all right. Very inconvenient with no water though. There is little information. I am very moved with the messages sent from all over the world".
We have been trying hard to find YOSHIKO TOGASHI, with whom we have not heard yet.
There are 5 more members in Saitama, one of those affected areas, that we have been trying to find. We have already contacted some other members from Saitama. TATSUO SHIMIZU is one of them and said "Sorry for the delay. I had to stay in a shelter overnight because there was no train back home. When I came back home this afternoon, I was happy to see all my family were all right. We will be having shortages of food, water and petrol in the coming days. However, we are lucky compared to those who have lost their houses, not knowing what happened to their families."
We haven't heard from 11 more, who are all in the western part of Japan, not greatly affected by the tsunami. So we assume all the 11 are all right. However, you can't take anything for granted when the situation is like this. One of the members from these areas sent a message just yesterday saying he was all right and fotunately his family were all right too. We didn't know that his family were in Sendai, so we didn't think about him too much, but we were wrong. We really hope that the 11 members and their families are really all right...
Finally. YUKO SANNOMARU already sent a message to us saying she was all right. She lives in Akita, one of those affected areas. She said she didn't know what happend to her grandmother.
So, in total, of the 91 members 57 and their families - except for YUKO SANNOMARU's grand mother - have all been found safe.
We have no news on the other 34, 1 from Ibaraki, 5 from Saitama, 17 from Tokyo and 11 from western Japan
We have no news on the other 34, 1 from Ibaraki, 5 from Saitama, 17 from Tokyo and 11 from western Japan
We will continue trying to contact all the members, while praying for those who have been affected. It is really painful to hear about people who are desperate to find their families in the evacuation centres with no information, insufficient food, water or blankets.
In such a terrible disaster, we have had so many messages for us from literally all over the world. Lots of Japanese Reds, not just the members of the Supporters Club, say they were really moved by the messages from Liverpool FC and fellow Liverpool fans. It really looks like we are in the one big family of Liverpool FC, and our family members are thinking of us, the Japanese Reds.
Thank you for your support.
Keiko Hirano
Japanese LFC Supporters Club
Japanese LFC Supporters Club
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