Rugby's Japanese birthplace gears up to host World Cup final

More than a century and a half after the first rugby club in Asia was established in the city, Yokohama is keen to promote the role it played in growing the sport in Japan while welcoming fans from around the world as one of the host cities for the 2019 World Cup.Now a heaving metropolis indistinguishable from greater Tokyo, Yokohama was once a small fishing village about 30 kilometers west of the Japanese capital.Despite this humble history, the city played an integral role in the introduction of foreign sports to Japan when it was forced to open its port to the world in 1859 under pressur…READ FULL ARTICLE