Description
Grulla Morioka are a professional soccer club in the J. League, currently playing in J3. Their home town is Morioka city in Iwate prefecture. Team’s home stadium is the South Park Football Stadium in Morioka city.
The club was founded in 2000 by the graduates of Morioka Commercial High School and Morioka Chuo High School under the name Villanova Morioka. Villanova started off in the Iwate Prefecture League’s 2nd division and after the 1st division they promoted to the Tohoku Soccer League’s 2nd division. In 2003 they changed the team name to Grulla Morioka when they set their sights on creating a J. League team in Morioka.
The following year, they won the championship in the north block of the Tohoku Soccer League’s 2nd division and promoted to the 1st division. From that point onward, up to their promotion to J3 in 2014, they left incredible results by winning 1st place 6 times and coming 2nd 3 times during 9 seasons.
Especially from 2007 to 2010, when they won 4 championships in a row and were unstoppable in Tohoku. However, in the Japan Regional Football Champions League they were defeated in the 1st round for the 4th year in a row, making their promotion to the J. League seem like an impossible task.
In 2013, they won the Tohoku League’s 1st division championship after a 3 year pause, came second in the All Japan Senior Football Championship and by winning the Japan Regional Football Champions League, their long awaited J. League membership was approved and they would start in the J3 league in 2014.
In their first year in J3, they won 3 games in a row and continued in good shape, finishing 5th out of 12 teams. Because the team was stuck in a slump in 2015 and 2016, hoping to change the tide, they hired a new manager in 2017 – Toshimi Kikuchi, who during his active career played for Tokyo Verdy.
The team’s home jersey is white and their supplier from 2017 has been Under Armour. Their shirts are decorated with logos of their local sponsors like Palcohome, Yakuodo, and others.