AT Co., Ltd. Opens Registration for a Kashiwa Walking Tour Exploring Noma Embankments and a “Phantom Station”

AT Co., Ltd., a company run by J.League supporters under the theme of connecting sports spectators with local communities, is recruiting participants for its “Stamachi Tour,” a program designed to discover and experience the appeal of towns with stadiums. The tour, titled “A Zigzag Border Tour Exploring the History of Edo Shogunate Warhorse Breeding, Noma Embankments, and a Phantom Station,” will be held on Saturday, May 23. The approximately 90-minute terrain observation tour covers about 4.5 kilometers from Minami-Kashiwa to Hitachidai. Guided by a walking-tour planner from the Chiba Suribachi Society, participants will explore questions such as: What is the embankment in front of the stadium? Why do the roads from Kashiwa to Hitachidai run diagonally? What was the phantom station on the Urban Park Line? During the Edo period, the area around Kashiwa included shogunate-controlled pastures known as “maki,” where horses were grazed. Since coexistence between horses and residents was difficult, embankments called “Noma dote” were built to prevent horses from entering farmland. Some of these embankments still remain in the city today, quietly preserving traces of local history. The tour follows routes where participants can feel this history while heading toward Hitachidai with engaging commentary. The tour will take place on Saturday, May 23, from 14:00 to 15:30. Participants should meet at 13:50 at the bottom of the east exit stairs of JR Minami-Kashiwa Station. Capacity is 14 people, with a minimum of 2 participants required. The route runs about 4.5 kilometers from Minami-Kashiwa Station to Hitachidai. The fee is 2,200 yen per person, tax included. As the entire tour is on foot, infants and toddlers cannot participate. Applications close at 23:00 on Thursday, May 21. The day’s itinerary includes meeting at Minami-Kashiwa Station, walking along the zigzag city border between Nagareyama and Kashiwa, observing remaining Noma embankments in Matsugaoka and Shintomicho before heading toward Toyoshiki, and proceeding from the former site of a phantom Tobu Line station to the stadium in Hitachidai. The guide is Hidemitsu Kobayashi of the Chiba Suribachi Society. A resident of Nagareyama, Chiba Prefecture, he works in the map industry and describes himself as a geography enthusiast. On weekends, he enjoys exploring elevation differences and distinctive road patterns in towns. He has also planned walking tours for the Chiba Suribachi Society and guided fieldwork in Nagareyama, Abiko, and Minami-Kashiwa. In football, he is a Sagan Tosu supporter who enjoys away trips and visiting stadiums across Japan. “Stamachi Tour” is a supporter-led project for supporters. “Stamachi” is a coined term meaning “a town with a stadium.” The tour is a small-group experiential program designed mainly for visiting football supporters, allowing them to learn, experience, and take something home while enjoying the area far more deeply than through a simple visit. AT Co., Ltd. was founded in August 2024 by two football supporters as a company that connects sports spectators with local communities. Its main focus is away tourism: discovering and developing the appeal of home towns visited by away supporters, and helping create schemes that link professional sports events with local economic revitalization. Starting from Kashiwa, the company aims to cultivate away tourism in stadium towns across Japan through digital platforms, social media, free papers, walking maps, websites, and locally rooted tourism content.