Hunan Billows F.C.

Hunan Billows
Húnán Xiāngtāo
湖南湘涛

Full name	Hunan Xiangtao Football Club 湖南湘涛足球俱乐部
Founded	26 December 2006 (official) 15 January 2004 (unofficial)
Ground	Helong Stadium,[1] China
Capacity	55,000
Chairman	Li Jingman
Manager	Tomaž Kavčič
League	China League One
2015	14th
Home colours Away colours

Hunan Billows Football Club (simplified Chinese: 湖南湘涛; traditional Chinese: 湖南湘濤; pinyin: Húnán Xiāngtāo) is a professional Chinese football club that currently participates in the China League One division under licence from the Chinese Football Association (CFA). The team is based in Yiyang, Hunan and their home stadium is the 30,000 capacity Yiyang Stadium. Their current majority shareholders are the Hunan Provincial Sports Bureau and high-tech industry company Hunan Corun New Energy co. ltd.

The club was originally founded on January 15, 2004 as Hunan Xiangjun to take part in the second tier at the beginning of the 2004 Chinese football league season. After three seasons the club was relegated and faced financial difficulties, however to preserve the representation of Hunan province within the Chinese football league pyramid, fans of the club raised three million Yuan in the hopes of keeping the team going before the local Hunan government sports body decided that it would be best to invest on a brand new team for the area where they essentially formed a new club called Hunan Billows (Simplified Chinese: 湖南湘军) on December 26, 2006. The reformed club have since gone on to win the 2009 Chinese League Two title and promotion to the Chinese League One division where they have since remained.

History

Formation

Before the start of the 2004 Chinese football league season Chongqing Lifan and Yunnan Hongta would merge their football clubs together. This saw a free space available within the second division and the surplus players from both the clubs would decide to band together to form a new club called Hunan Xiangjun (or Hunan Shoking Football Club in English) after they gained investment from the Hunan Corun New Energy co. ltd who bought the club's registration into the division for 20 million Yuan.^[2] On January 15, 2004 the club was officially inaugurated into the Chinese football league and hired former Chinese Olympic medalist Xiong Ni as their Chairman and former Chinese international footballer Zhu Bo as their first manager. Playing within the 55,000 seat Helong Stadium in Changsha the club had internationals in Fu Bin and Srđan Bajčetić while the youth team called Xiangxue Pharmaceutical participated in the 2004–05 Hong Kong First Division League to gain experience.^[3] Unfortunately the youth team failed to impress while the senior team faired little better and would initially struggle within their debut season, however they did enough to survive and finished tenth at the end of the season.^[4]

The following season was to prove extremely difficult for the club, Miloš Hrstić came in as manager but had an extremely high profile dispute with the owners about unpaid wages and it would soon be discovered that the club were in financial difficulties due to an excessive wage bill for their players along with renting of Helong Stadium.^[5] This saw the ownership of the club move to the company Bailong and their general manager Sun Yingui for a brief period, however this was short-lived and Hunan Corun took over the club once again. While this was going on Li Hui was managing the side with little success, which saw him and his players reach breaking point after a humiliating 5–1 defeat to Shanghai International on June 18, 2005 in a Chinese FA Cup game saw Li Hui publicly criticize his players lack of commitment before deciding to leave the club.^[6] Wang Tao was brought in as his replacement to manage the club while the team finishing in a disappointing twelfth but remained within the league.^[7] Li Kejia was brought in as a new manager in the 2006 league season, however the team continued their losing ways and former Chinese international Hao Haidong was brought in as a General manager to help inspire the team, this turned out to be fruitless and the club finished rock bottom of the league and were relegated to the third tier.^[8]

Reformation

To preserve the representation of Hunan province within the Chinese football league pyramid, fans of the club raised three million Yuan in the hopes of keeping the team going before the local Hunan Provincial Sports Bureau decided that it would be best to invest on a brand new team for the area.^[9] On December 26, 2006 essentially a new team was formed to participate within the 2007 league season called Hunan Xiangtao (or Hunan Billows Football Club in English) despite Xiong Ni returning as their Chairman and Li Kejia returning as their manager.^[10] Now playing within the 6,000 capacity Hunan Provincial People's Stadium the team was completely rebuilt and played their first league game against Sichuan FC in a 1–0 defeat.^[11] Throughout the season the club's results would actually improve and the team would finish third within the Southern division where they made the play-offs but were knocked out in the second round.^[12] With a further investment of six million Yuan from the local Hunan government sports body the following season results would see the club gain another play-off position where they were once again knocked out in the second round.^[13] By the 2009 league season and with the continued investment of the local Hunan government sports body as well as the management of Men Wenfeng the club now had a team to go on to win the division title after they beat local rivals Hubei Greenery in the play-off final to win the division title.^[14] Within the second tier again they would move back into the Helong Stadium and hire Zhao Faqing as their new manager at the beginning of the 2010 league season. Initially the season began well for the club and they looked like genuine promotion contenders until conflicts between the Hunan and the Hubei Greenery fans during their May 14 game seemed to derail their promotion push and they eventually finished the season in sixth.^[15] The next season they would move into the 20,000 seat Central South University Stadium and brought in Miloš Hrstić to manage them. While Miloš Hrstić's reign saw a slight improvement within the teams ranking at the end of the 2011 league season, which saw them finish fourth he would leave the club at the end of the campaign and was replaced by his assistant coach Zhang Xu.^[16] In preparation for the 2012 league season the club would then bring in several high profile players such as Honduras internationals Emil Martínez and Erick Norales as well as Chinese international Dong Fangzhuo in their hopes to win promotion.^[17] The splurge in recruitment would not result in promotion that season, however it would see an increase in investment in from the Hunan Liuyang River Wine Winery Industry Co., Ltd., Zoomlion Company Limited, Central South Publishing & Media Group Co., Ltd., Kelme and the return of Hunan Corun New Energy co. ltd.^[18]

Name history

• 2004–06 Hunan Xiangjun (湖南湘军)
• 2007– Hunan Billows (湖南湘涛)

Crest history

• 

  Hunan Xiangjun
  2004–2006
• 

  Hunan Xiangtao
  2007–2009
• 

  Hunan Billows
  2011–Present

Grounds

The team have played in several stadiums throughout their history, however when they were originally formed they predominantly used the 55,000 seat Helong Stadium in Changsha for their important matches while the more modest 6,000 seat Hunan Provincial People's Stadium which is also located in Changsha was used for their smaller games.^[19] With the club in financial difficulties the cost in renting the Helong Stadium would see the team permanently move into the Hunan Provincial People's Stadium, which continued when the club was reformed and they were playing in the third tier. When they won promotion back into the second tier the Helong Stadium was an option for a brief period before 2011 when they have predominantly used the 20,000 seat Central South University Stadium in Changsha as their main stadium.^[20]

Current squad

As of 4 march 2016 ^[21]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 1 GK Deng Zihao 2 DF Ji Zhengyu 3 DF Zhou Tanwei 4 DF Cao Huan 5 MF Rok Elsner 6 DF Kong Tao 7 FW Chen Zijie 8 MF Yang Ke 9 FW Luis Carlos Cabezas 10 MF Jhon Valoy 11 FW Li Xiang 13 FW Wang Chen 16 MF Xie Weichao 17 DF Li Zhaonan

No. Position Player 18 DF Qin Peng 19 GK Dong Jianhong 20 FW Liu Xinyu 21 DF Cao Guodong 22 DF Liu Yusheng 23 DF Liu Qing 25 DF Sun Guoliang 27 MF Yuan Lu 28 MF Wang Haozhi 29 FW Xue Yuan 30 GK Wang Peng 31 DF Liu Shuai 32 DF Hao Shuang 33 DF Yao Jiangshan

Reserve squad

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 42 DF Wang Yuyang 43 DF Zhong Zhenlong 44 FW Qiu Lingfeng 45 MF Chen Chao-an 46 MF Chen Qi 47 MF Zhong Haoran

No. Position Player 48 FW Liu Peilin 49 MF Wang Yuxuan 51 DF He Kaiwen 52 MF Yao Xilong 53 GK Zhai Bin 54 FW Sheng Chunlin

Out on loan

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player MF Hao Shuai (at Shanghai JuJu Sports until 31 December 2016)

Coaching staff

Position	Staff
Head coach	Tomaž Kavčič
Fitness coach	Robert Englaro
Assistant coach	Tu Quanxin
Goalkeeping Coach	Yang Guidong
Fitness coach	Huang Cheng
Team Physician	Ren Peilin Yang Junchao

Source: sina.com

Managerial history

Hunan Xiangjun Zhu Bo 15 January 2004 – 2004 Miloš Hrstić 2005 – April 2005 Li Hui April 2005–27 June 2005 Wang Tao 28 June 2005– Li Kejia 2006 Hunan Billows Li Kejia 26 December 2006 – 2008 Men Wenfeng 2009

Zhao Faqing 2009–19 December 2009 Miloš Hrstić 19 December 2009 – 1 November 2011 Zhang Xu 1 November 2011 – 11 December 2012 Dražen Besek 11 December 2012 – 25 July 2013 Huang Cheng (Caretaker) 25 July 2013 – 27 November 2014 Aleksandar Stankov 27 November 2014 – 2 May 2015 Zhang Xu (caretaker) 2 May 2015 – 6 August 2015 Žikica Tasevski 6 August 2015 – 1 November 2015 Tomaž Kavčič 30 November 2015–

Honours

• China League Two (Third Tier League)^[14]

Winners (1) : 2009

Results

All-time league rankings

• As of the end of 2015 season.^[22][23]

Year	Div	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Pos.	FA Cup	Super Cup	AFC	Att./G	Stadium
2004	2	32	7	10	15	34	51	−17	31	14	R1	DNQ	DNQ		Xiangtan City Sports Center / Helong Stadium / Hunan Provincial People's Stadium
2005	2	26	5	4	17	24	56	−32	19	12	R2	DNQ	DNQ		Helong Stadium / Liuyang City Sports Center
2006	2	24	2	9	13	16	33	−17	15	13	R1	DNQ	DNQ		Helong Stadium
2007	3	14	5	4	5	15	16	−1	16 ^1	8[24]	NH	DNQ	DNQ		Hunan Provincial People's Stadium
2008	3	16	10	1	5	23	14	19	28 ^1	6[25]	NH	DNQ	DNQ		Hunan Provincial People's Stadium
2009	3	17	6	9	2	30	17	13	15 ^1	W	NH	DNQ	DNQ		Hunan Provincial People's Stadium
2010	2	24	10	5	9	21	24	−3	35	6	NH	DNQ	DNQ		Hunan Provincial People's Stadium
2011	2	26	12	6	8	39	35	4	42	4	R1	DNQ	DNQ		Hunan Provincial People's Stadium / CSUFT East-Garden Stadium
2012	2	30	10	8	12	33	37	−4	38	11	R3	DNQ	DNQ	6,970	CSUFT East-Garden Stadium / Hunan Provincial People's Stadium / Yiyang Olympic Sports Park Stadium
2013	2	30	7	9	14	27	40	−13	30	12	R3	DNQ	DNQ	4,668	Yiyang Olympic Sports Park Stadium / Helong Stadium
2014	2	30	12	9	9	38	33	5	45	6	R3	DNQ	DNQ	5,169	CSUFT East-Garden Stadium / Yiyang Olympic Sports Park Stadium
2015	2	30	8	5	17	32	48	−16	29	14	R2	DNQ	DNQ	4,795	Yiyang Olympic Sports Park Stadium / Helong Stadium
2016	2	30									R2	DNQ	DNQ		Yiyang Olympic Sports Park Stadium

• ^1 In group stage.

Key

China top division   China second division   China third division W   Winners RU   Runners-up 3   Third place   Relegated

Pld = Played W = Games won D = Games drawn L = Games lost F = Goals for A = Goals against Pts = Points Pos = Final position

DNQ = Did Not Qualify DNE = Did Not Enter NH = Not Held  – = Does Not Exist R1 = Round 1 R2 = Round 2 R3 = Round 3 R4 = Round 4

F = Final SF = Semi-finals QF = Quarter-finals R16 = Round of 16 Group = Group stage GS2 = Second Group stage QR1 = First Qualifying Round QR2 = Second Qualifying Round QR3 = Third Qualifying Round

References

1. http://int.soccerway.com/matches/2015/09/19/china-pr/china-league-one/hunan-xiangtao-fc/guizhou-zhicheng-toro-fc/2020013/
2. ""足球湘军"加速本土化　海南猛练体能". sina.com.cn. 2004-01-27. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
3. "Hongkong 2004/05". rsssf.com. 17 Nov 2005. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
4. "China 2004". rsssf.com. 7 Apr 2005. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
5. "米罗西中国足球情结：与米卢亲密 拒绝假赌黑". sports.qq.com. 2010-11-29. Retrieved 2015-07-15.
6. "湖南湘军失控足协杯惨败 主帅李辉黯然逃离(图)". sports.sohu.com. 2005-06-27. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
7. "China 2005". rsssf.com. 26 Oct 2006. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
8. "郝海东出手收购湖南湘军(图)". sohu.com. 2006-07-18. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
9. "球迷捐助300万重组湘军 湘涛俱乐部成立战中乙". sohu.com. 2007-01-24. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
10. "熊倪倾情关注湖南足球 湘涛回家备战07乙级联赛". hnxiangtao.com. 2007-04-12. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
11. "乙级联赛湘涛首战失利 0比1惜败给来访四川队". hnxiangtao.com. 2007-05-06. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
12. "China 2007". rsssf.com. 18 Apr 2008. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
13. "湖南湘涛砸六百万冲甲". sina.com.cn. 2008-04-29. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
14. "China 2009". rsssf.com. 23 Apr 2010. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
15. "湘鄂球迷爆小规模冲突 不和谐因子去年已种下(图)". sports.sina.com.cn. 2010-05-14. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
16. "China 2010". rsssf.com. 21 Jun 2012. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
17. "08中超足球先生马丁内斯加盟湖南湘涛". hnxiangtao.com. 2011-12-15. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
18. "湘涛备战加一鞭子". epaper.voc.com.cn. 2013-01-08. Retrieved 2015-07-15.
19. "Hunan Xiangtao FC". soccerway.com. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
20. "Team's stadiums" (in Chinese). hnxiangtao.com , team website. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
21. 2016中甲联赛湖南湘涛队完全名单 sports.sohu.com 2016-03-04 Retrieved 2016-03-04
22. "China – List of Champions". rsssf.com. 20 March 2014. Retrieved 7 May 2014.
23. "湖南湘涛". sodasoccer.com. Retrieved 3 February 2014.
24. 2007年中国足球协会乙级联赛决赛阶段比赛名次 fa.org.cn 2013-04-30 Retrieved 2016-03-04
25. 2008年中国足球协会乙级联赛决赛阶段比赛名次 fa.org.cn 2013-04-30 Retrieved 2016-03-04

External links

• Official club website (Chinese)