is a Japanese professional football club based in Hiratsuka, in the west of Kanagawa Prefecture, part of the Greater Tokyo Area. The club will play in the J2 League, the second tier of football in the country as of the season 2026–27, after relegated from J1 League, with three matches remaining. Their home stadium is Hiratsuka Athletics Stadium. Shonan refers to a coastal area along Sagami Bay that includes Hiratsuka. Bellmare is a portmanteau of the Italian words bello and mare, meaning "beautiful sea".
History
Early years as corporate team (1968–1992)
The club was founded in 1968 as "Towa Real Estate SC" in Nasu, Tochigi. They were promoted to the Japan Soccer League (JSL) Division 1 in 1972. In 1975 they changed their name to "Fujita Kogyo SC" when Towa Estate Development gave up the ownership to their parent company Fujita Industries, which moved the club headquarters to Tokyo and their training ground to Hiratsuka one year later in 1976.
They won the JSL three times (including two doubles with the Emperor's Cup) between 1977 and 1981. They were nevertheless relegated to the JSL's Division 2 in 1990. Although they won the last JSL Division 2 season in 1991–92, the professionalization and formation of the J.League meant they did not meet the new top flight league's criteria and the runners-up, Kashima Antlers (formerly Sumitomo), were promoted instead.
1993: JFL
In 1993, they adopted the new name "Bellmare Hiratsuka". Their application to the J.League Associate membership was accepted. They played in the former Japan Football League Division 1 and won the league championship. After Hiratsuka City Council committed to finance the refurbishment of the Hiratsuka Stadium to meet the J.League requirements, J.League accepted the club.
1994–1997: Golden era
thumb|left|[[Hidetoshi Nakata, who won the Asian Cup Winners' Cup trophy in 1996]]
The club was forced to change their name to Bellmare Hiratsuka because J.League required the participants to designate only one city or town as their hometown and include its name in the club names at that time. The club initially struggled to cope with the J.League opponents and finished 11th out of 12 in the first stage of the 1994 season. However, they came back in the second stage and finished 2nd. With this momentum, the club won the 1994–1995 Emperor's Cup. This title qualified Bellmare for the 1995–96 Asian Cup Winners' Cup, which they won by beating Iraq's Al Talaba in the final. Hidetoshi Nakata joined the team in 1995 and they also successfully recruited Brazilian-born Wagner Lopes and influential Korean international Hong Myung-bo. This is arguably the most successful period of the club.
1998–1999: Difficult period
Four Bellmare players were selected for the 1998 FIFA World Cup. They were Nakata, Lopes, Hong (for South Korea) and a goalkeeper Nobuyuki Kojima. However, as Nakata left for Italian club Perugia just after the World Cup, the club's fortune started to decline. The main sponsor Fujita decided to discontinue the financial support in 1999 due to their own financial difficulties. It forced the club to release some highly paid players including Lopes, Hong and Kojima. They finished bottom of J1 in 1999 and were relegated to J2.
2000–2009: J2 League
The club made a new start. The ownership was transferred to a community-owned organisation. They also changed their name to Shonan Bellmare as J.League allowed them to enlarge their designated hometowns to include several cities and towns surrounding Hiratsuka. It was the first time for Shonan Bellmare to win three major titles since winning the 74th Emperor's Cup in the Bellmare Hiratsuka.
On the operational side, there was some report that the club fell into excess debt of more than 100 million yen in February 2012, and in the worst case the club itself could be dissolved (the actual amount of excess debt was 82.68 million yen). However, the debt insolvency was resolved by two capital increases.
In April 2018, SANEI ARCHITECTURE PLANNING, which was the largest shareholder of Shonan Bellmare, established "Merudia RIZAP Shonan Sports Partners" in collaboration with RIZAP GROUP. The new company acquired a 50% stake in Shonan Bellmare. RIZAP GROUP intends to invest 1 billion yen in Bellmare over the next three years.
Rivalries
Historically the Shonan area was part of a pre-modern province, Sagami Province, whereas Yokohama and Kawasaki were part of Musashi Province, hence Bellmare's intraprefectural rivalries with Yokohama F. Marinos, Yokohama FC and Kawasaki Frontale are based on the hard-working port cities of South Musashi as opposed to the more laid-back attitude of Sagami.
Affiliated clubs
The following clubs are currently affiliated with Shonan Bellmare:'
- Boeung Ket (2022–2026)
- Sudeva Delhi (2022–2026)
- Nongbua Pitchaya (2022–2026)
- Wuhan Three Towns (2022–2030)
- FC Chanthabouly (2022–2028)
- Kelantan Darul Naim (2022–2030)
- Inter Milan (2024–2038)
- SS Lazio (2024–2038)
- Borussia Dortmund (2024–2038)
Former
- Davao Aguilas (2022–2024)
- ASIOP (2022–2025)
- Wolverhampton Wanderers (2024–2025)
Players
First-team squad
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<!----------------------------- READ THIS NOTICE FIRST BEFORE EDITING ----------------------------------
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Out on loan
Club officials
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Role !! Name
|-
| Manager
| Satoshi Yamaguchi
|-
| Assistant manager
| Yoshihiro Natsuka <br> Masahiro Koga <br> Yoshihiro Yatsukawa
|-
| Coach assistant
| Taiga Soeda
|-
| Goalkeeper coach
| Takeaki Yuhara
|-
| Analyst
| Masayuki Hirakawa
|-
| Physical coach
| Kazutaka Takahashi
|-
| Conditioning coach
| Yuta Iguchi
|-
| Chief team doctor
| Eiichi Suzuki
|-
| Team doctor
| Hirofumi Katsutani <br> Makoto Takahashi
|-
| Medical group chief trainer
| Hisayoshi Kojima
|-
| Athletic trainer
| Nobuhide Kurihara <br> Takahiro Yoshikawa
|-
| Physiotherapist
| Shusuke Shimada <br> Shigeyuki Shimizu
|-
| Interpreter
| Kim Fan-ju <br> Tiago Higa
|-
| Competent
| Keita Mikami
|-
| Side affairs
| Hiroto Araki <br> Takahito Hiraga <br> Hiroto Tanaka
|}
Managerial history
{|class="wikitable"
!rowspan="2"|Manager !!rowspan="2" |Nationality !!colspan="2" |Tenure<!--!colspan="5"|Managerial Record-->
|-
!Start !!Finish<!--!-->
|-
|Yukio Shimomura || ||1 February 1972 ||31 January 1979
<!--!-->
|-
|Yoshinobu Ishii || ||1 January 1975 ||31 December 1980
<!--!-->
|-
|Tsutomu Nakamura|| ||1 February 1981 ||31 January 1985
<!--!-->
|-
|Hidemitsu Hanaoka|| ||1 February 1985 ||30 June 1988
<!--!-->
|-
|Yoshinobu Ishii || ||1 January 1988 ||31 December 1990
<!--!-->
|-
|Mitsuru Komaeda || ||1 July 1990 ||27 November 1995
<!--!-->
|-
|Shigeharu Ueki || ||28 November 1995 ||31 January 1996
<!--!-->
|-
|Toninho Moura || ||1 February 1996 ||19 September 1996
<!--!-->
|-
|Shigeharu Ueki || ||20 September 1996 ||31 January 1999
<!--!-->
|-
|Eiji Ueda || ||1 February 1999 ||30 June 1999
<!--!-->
|-
|Mitsuru Komaeda || ||1 July 1999 ||31 January 2000
<!--!-->
|-
|Hisashi Katō || ||1 February 2000 ||31 January 2001
<!--!-->
|-
|Kōji Tanaka || ||1 February 2001 ||30 November 2002
<!--!-->
|-
|Ajam Boujarari Mohammed || ||1 February 2003 ||15 May 2003
<!--!-->
|-
|Matsuichi Yamada || ||16 May 2003 ||14 July 2004
<!--!-->
|-
|Tatsuya Mochizuki || ||15 July 2004 ||13 September 2004
<!--!-->
|-
|Eiji Ueda || ||15 September 2004 ||5 June 2006
<!--!-->
|-
|Masaaki Kanno || ||5 June 2006 ||31 January 2009
<!--!-->
|-
|Yasuharu Sorimachi || ||1 February 2009 ||31 January 2012
<!--!-->
|-
|Cho Kwi-jae || ||1 February 2012 ||8 October 2019
<!--!-->
|-
|Kenji Takahashi || ||13 August 2019 ||9 October 2019
<!--!-->
|-
|Bin Ukishima || ||10 October 2019 ||31 August 2021
<!--!-->
|-
|Satoshi Yamaguchi || ||1 September 2021 ||Current
<!--!-->
|}
Record as J.League member
{|class="wikitable"
|bgcolor=gold|<small>Champions</small>
|bgcolor=silver|<small>Runners-up</small>
|bgcolor=ff6600|<small>Third place</small>
|bgcolor=palegreen|<small>Promoted</small>
|bgcolor=pink|<small>Relegated</small>
|}
{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
!colspan="13" |League !!rowspan="2"|J.League Cup !!rowspan="2"|Emperor's<br>Cup !!colspan="2" rowspan="2"|Asia
|-
!Season !!Div. !!Teams !!Pos. !!P !!W <small>(OTW/PKW)</small> !!D !!L <small>(OTL/PKL)</small> !!F !!A !!GD !!Pts!!Attendance/G
|-
|colspan="17"|Bellmare Hiratsuka
|-
|1994
|rowspan="6"|J1 ||12 ||5th ||44 ||23 || ||21 ||75 ||80 ||–5 || ||17,836 ||First round ||bgcolor=gold|Winners|| ||
|-
|1995
|14 ||11th ||52 ||21 || ||29 <small>(/2)</small> ||94 ||102 ||–8 ||65 ||16,111 || ||Second round ||CWC ||bgcolor=gold|Winners
|-
|1996
|16 ||11th ||30 ||12 || ||18 <small>(/0)</small> ||47 ||58 ||–11 ||36 ||10,483 ||Semi-finals ||Quarter-finals ||CWC ||Quarter-finals
|-
|1997
|17 ||8th ||32 ||14 || ||12 <small>(/1)</small> ||55 ||52 ||3 ||49 ||7,841 ||Group stage ||Quarter-finals ||rowspan="3"|Did not qualify ||rowspan="3"|Did not qualify
|-
|1998
|18 ||11th ||34 ||12 <small>(2/2)</small> || ||17 <small>(1/0)</small> ||53 ||66 ||–13 ||42 ||10,158 ||Group stage ||Round of 16
|-
|1999
|16 ||bgcolor=pink|16th ||30 ||4 <small>(0/-)</small> ||1 ||22 <small>(3/0)</small> ||30 ||72 ||–42 ||13 ||7,388 ||First round ||Third round
|-
|colspan="17"|Shonan Bellmare
|-
|2000
|rowspan="10"|J2 ||11 ||8th || 40 ||12 <small>(3/0)</small> ||1 ||17 <small>(7/)</small> ||59 ||71 ||–12 ||43 ||4,968 ||First round ||Third round ||rowspan="28"|Did not qualify||rowspan="28"|Did not qualify
|-
|2001
|12 ||8th ||44 ||16 <small>(4/)</small> ||4 ||18 <small>(2/0)</small> ||64 ||61 ||3 ||60 ||4,112 ||First round ||Second round
|-
|2002
|12 ||5th ||44 ||16 ||16 ||12 ||46 ||46 ||3 ||64 ||4,551 ||rowspan="8"|Not eligible ||Round of 16
|-
|2003
|12 ||10th ||44 ||11 ||11 ||22 ||33 ||53 ||–20 ||44 ||4,731 ||Round of 16
|-
|2004
|12 ||10th ||44 ||7 ||15 ||22 ||39 ||64 ||–25 ||36 ||4,691 ||Round of 16
|-
|2005
|12 ||7th ||44 ||13 ||15 ||16 ||46 ||59 ||–13 ||54 ||5,746 ||Third round
|-
|2006
|13 ||11th ||48 ||13 ||10 ||25 ||61 ||87 ||–26 ||49 ||5,365 ||4th round
|-
|2007
|13 ||6th ||48 ||23 ||8 ||17 ||72 ||55 ||17 ||77 ||4,677 ||4th round
|-
|2008
|15 ||5th ||42 ||19 ||8 ||15 ||68 ||48 ||20 ||65 ||5,994 ||Third round
|-
|2009
|18 ||bgcolor=palegreen|3rd ||51 ||29 ||11 ||11 ||84 ||52 ||32 ||98 ||7,273 ||Second round
|-
|2010
|J1 ||18||bgcolor=pink|18th ||34 ||3 ||7 ||24 ||31 ||82 ||–51 ||16 ||11,095 ||Group stage ||Third round
|-
|2011
|rowspan="2"|J2 ||20 ||14th ||38 ||12 ||10 ||16 ||46 ||48 ||–2 ||46||6,943 ||rowspan="2"|Not eligible ||Quarter-finals
|-
|2012
|22 ||bgcolor=silver|2nd ||42 ||20 ||15 ||7 ||66 ||43 ||23 ||75 ||6,852 ||Third round
|-
|2013
|J1 ||18 ||bgcolor=pink|16th ||34 ||6 ||7 ||21 ||34 ||62 ||–28 ||25||9,911 ||Group stage ||Third round
|-
|2014
|J2 ||22 ||bgcolor=gold|1st ||42 ||31 ||8 ||3 ||86 ||25 ||61 ||101 ||8,478 ||Not eligible||Third round
|-
|2015
|rowspan="2"|J1 ||18 ||8th ||34 ||13 ||9 ||12 ||40 ||44 ||–4 ||48 ||12,208 ||Group stage ||Third round
|-
|2016
|18 ||bgcolor=pink|17th ||34 ||7 ||6 ||21 ||30 ||56 ||–26 ||27 ||11,530 ||Group stage ||Quarter-finals
|-
|2017
|J2 ||22 ||bgcolor=gold|1st ||42 ||24 ||11 ||7 ||58 ||36 ||22 ||83 ||8,454 ||Not eligible ||Third round
|-
|2018
|rowspan=8"|J1 ||18 ||13th ||34 ||10 ||11 ||13 ||38 ||43 ||–5 ||41 ||12,120 ||bgcolor="gold"|Winners ||Round of 16
|-
|2019
|18 ||16th ||34 ||10 ||6 ||18 ||40 ||63 ||–23 ||36 ||12,848 ||Group stage ||Second round
|-
|2020 †
|18 ||18th ||34 ||6 ||9 ||19 ||29 ||48 ||–19 ||27 ||4,467 ||Group stage ||Did not qualify
|-
|2021 †
|20 ||16th ||38 ||7 ||16 ||15 ||36 ||41 ||–5 ||37 ||4,850 ||Play-off stage ||Round of 16
|-
|2022
|18 ||12th ||34 ||10 ||11 ||13 ||31 ||39 ||–8 ||41 ||9,228 ||Play-off stage ||Third round
|-
|2023
|18 ||15th ||34 ||8 ||10 ||16 ||40 ||56 ||–16 ||34 ||13,161 ||Group stage ||Quarter-finals
|-
|2024
|20 ||15th ||38 ||12 ||9 ||17 ||53 ||58 ||–5 ||45 ||11,315 ||Second round ||Round of 16
|-
|2025
|20 ||bgcolor=pink|19th ||38 ||8 ||8 ||22 ||36 ||63 ||–27 ||32 ||11,426 ||Quarter-finals ||Third round
|-
|2026
|rowspan="2"|J2 ||10 ||TBD ||18 || || || || || || || || ||N/A ||N/A
|-
|2026–27
|20 ||TBD ||38 || || || || || || || || ||TBD ||TBD
|}
;Key
Honours
As Towa / Fujita (until 1992); Bellmare Hiratsuka (1993–1999) and Shonan Bellmare (2000–present)
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|+Shonan Bellmare honours
!scope=col|Competition !!scope=col|No. !!scope=col|Years
|-
<!--! In chronological order-->
!scope=row|Kanto Soccer League
|align="center"|1
|1971
|-
!scope=row|All Japan Senior Football Championship
|align="center"|1
|1971
|-
!scope=row|JSL Cup
|align="center"|1
|1973
|-
!scope=row|Emperor's Cup
|align="center"|3
|1977, 1979, 1994
|-
!scope=row|Japan Soccer League Division 1
|align="center"|3
|1977, 1979, 1981
|-
!scope=row|Japanese Super Cup
|align="center"|2
|1978, 1982
|-
!scope=row|Japan Soccer League Division 2
|align="center"|1
|1991–92
|-
!scope=row|Japan Football League Division 1
|align="center"|1
|1993
|-
!scope=row|Asian Cup Winners' Cup
|align="center"|1
|1995
|-
!scope=row|J2 League
|align="center"|2
|2014, 2017
|-
!scope=row|BTV Cup
|align="center"|1
|2016
|-
!scope=row|J.League Cup
|align="center"|1
|2018
|-
|}
League history
- Kanto Football League: 1970–71
- Division 1 (Japan Soccer League Div. 1): 1972–89 (1972–74 as Towa Real Estate Development; 1975–89 as Fujita Industries)
- Division 2 (Japan Soccer League Div. 2): 1990–91 (as Fujita Industries)
- Division 2 (Japan Football League (former) Div. 1): 1992–93 (as Fujita Industries)
- Division 1 (J.League Div. 1): 1994–99 (as Bellmare Hiratsuka)
- Division 2 (J.League Div. 2): 2000–09 (as Shonan Bellmare)
- Division 1 (J.League Div. 1): 2010
- Division 2 (J.League Div. 2): 2011–12
- Division 1 (J.League Div. 1): 2013
- Division 2 (J.League Div. 2): 2014
- Division 1 (J1 League): 2015–16
- Division 2 (J2 League): 2017
- Division 1 (J1 League): 2018–2025
- Division 2 (J2 League): 2026-
Total (after 2025): 36 seasons in the top tier, 18 seasons in the second tier and 2 seasons in the Regional Leagues.
Kit evolution
{|class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:65%; border:3px solid #005CA2; box-shadow: 4px 4px 4px #6EB92B;"
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|colspan=5|Home Kits - 1st
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|colspan=5|Away Kits - 2nd
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See also
- Shonan Bellmare Futsal Club