Kamatamare Sanuki

Kamatamare Sanuki's first taste of a J-League tier came the hard way, through a play-off rather than a straight finish. Runners-up in the Japan Football League in 2013, the club had to beat Gainare Tottori in the promotion/relegation play-off to reach J3, finishing second in the JFL and winning another play-off to move up into J2. Before any of that, the honours were regional: five Shikoku Soccer League titles across 1994, 1997, 2006, 2008 and 2010, a Kagawa Prefectural Football Championship in 1996, and a Shakaijin Cup in 2010, the same year the Regional League Promotion Series finally opened the door to national football.

None of it started as a football club with ambitions of that kind. It began in 1956 as Takasho OB Soccer Club, a side of former students from Takamatsu Commercial High School, and spent decades changing its name as it changed hands and sponsors — Kagawa Shiun FC, Sun Life FC, briefly Takamatsu FC — before settling on Kamatamare Sanuki in October 2005.

Forward Yutaka Takahashi was on the pitch through the 2013–2015 seasons that carried the club into J2. Marugame gave the club its ground, now called Shikoku Kasei Meglio Stadium after an earlier spell as Pikara Stadium, and Takamatsu occasionally supplies a second venue at Yashima Rexam Field. Ehime FC and FC Imabari fill out the rest of a Shikoku rivalry that has nothing to do with the national table. The club met the requirements for a J1 League licence in September 2023.