Overview
Ko Arima (有馬 洪, born August 22, 1917) was a Japanese football player who is recorded as having appeared for the Japan national team. Contemporary documentation about his club career, playing position and later life is scarce in publicly available sources. His recorded birth date is certain, but his date of death and many personal details remain undocumented in widely accessible records.
Playing career and national team
Arima's inclusion in national-team records places him among the generation of athletes active in Japan before, during, and shortly after the Second World War. Players of his era often balanced football with education or employment and commonly played for university squads, company teams, or regional clubs rather than modern professional sides. Exact match appearances and statistics for Arima are limited, but being listed as a national team member indicates he reached the highest level of the sport in Japan at the time.
Historical context
Football in Japan during the 1930s–1950s was organized around schools, universities and industrial teams. International fixtures were fewer than in later decades and many records were disrupted by wartime conditions. As a result, many early international players like Arima are known primarily through tournament rosters, match reports and federation lists rather than comprehensive personal biographies.
Legacy and research
Arima is representative of an early generation that helped establish competitive football in Japan. Researchers and historians reconstruct careers from match programs, national association archives and newspaper archives; gaps in those sources explain why some basic details remain unknown. For readers seeking more, national football association archives and period newspapers are the best places to look for match lineups and team notices from Arima's era.
Key facts
- Name: Ko Arima (有馬 洪)
- Born: August 22, 1917
- Role: Football player; represented Japan at international level
- Date of death: not publicly documented