Vegalta Sendai to Present Shirt to Town Saturday, 19th Oct 2013 13:30 Town will be presented with a shirt from Japanese club Vegalta Sendai prior to Saturday’s game against Burnley. Grant Cummings, one of the producers of the upcoming documentary film Football, Take Me Home, explains why. On Saturday we will be filming for a segment for the forthcoming documentary feature film Football, Take Me Home. The film tells the story of the maverick fans of Vegalta Sendai, an underachieving second division team in Japan whose home town was at the centre of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Despite losing over half the population of some of the coastal parts of the region to the tragedy, over 3,500 fans made it to the first away game less than a month after the earthquake to make a promise to the people of their city. Defiantly, they vowed that the team would not lose a game until the city had been rebuilt and almost true to their word, the team set out on a remarkable run that would see them finish runners-up in the Japanese premier division only two seasons later - with no extra funding and the same squad of players that had narrowly avoided relegation the season before. There is a close connection between Ipswich Town and the events in the story. Two survivors from the earthquake visited Portman Road for a game in the weeks after the disaster and were amazed to hear the Vegalta club song Take Me Home, Country Road being played in tribute to the people of their city. Their telling of the story — which was outlined in detail in a TWTD blog - allowed a chain of events to be followed back to Japan via Seattle that underlined the power of fans to unite against adversity - a true story of the international brotherhood of football fans that became an inspiration to a country in its darkest hour. The film is being directed by Douglas Hurcombe — who previously wrote this blog for TWTD on how the film came about - and Geoff Trodd and produced by Grant Cummings and Ben Timlett. The film is a Bill and Ben & Cling Film production, in association with GPO Films and is scheduled for release in early 2014. The filmmakers will also be amongst the guests on this Saturday’s Life’s a Pitch on Radio Suffolk (12-2pm). Read more about the film here.
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