History
Found as Shenzhen Jinpeng (or Shenzhen Kinspar, simplefied Chinese: 深圳金鹏) by the Shenzhen Kinspar Group in 1996, the club won the membership of the second division (Chinese Football Association Jia League Group B) by defeating Xiamen in the final of the third and the lowest division Chinese Football Association Yi League. In the following year, Shenzhen Jinpeng lost the bid to the championship and sold the club to Yunnan Hongta Group, a tobacco producer. The team was renamed Yunnan Hongta. They played in Tuodong Stadium.
Yunnan Hongta made huge investment in the club. First, Qi Wusheng, who failed to lead China to qualify for the 1998 FIFA World Cup was introduced in 1999. Next, the club bought a lot of young players from the upper division (Group A). Under Qi Wusheng the team won the runner up position of Group B and was promoted to Group A.
In the next year, Ou Chuliang, the goalkeeper of the national team, was transferred from Shanghai Shenhua. Qi Wusheng's coaching in the national team made the team attractive to many national footballers. In 2002, another national team regular player Wei Qun followed Ou Chuliang and joined the team.
After settled down in Group A, Yunnan Hongta began to chase the championship in 2002. However, despite of leading in the first half, they end up with the seventh. In the same year, they hosted Real Madrid during their offseason.
Read more about this topic: Yunnan Hongta F.C.
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“There is no history of how bad became better.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Bias, point of view, fury—are they ... so dangerous and must they be ironed out of history, the hills flattened and the contours leveled? The professors talk ... about passion and point of view in history as a Calvinist talks about sin in the bedroom.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)