JAPANESE LETTER/David McNeill: On a dull Friday morning in central Tokyo, Yukio Honma looks like just another bleary-eyed salaryman - grey suit, sensible shoes, briefcase clamped to his chest.
But in a squat office bunker in Shibuya, a strange transformation takes place. Mr Honma and a half-dozen others pull Irish soccer jerseys over their suits, march into a crowded office and burst into a wobbly but spirited version of Come On You Boys In Green.
The staff of the Japan Football Association look startled. Here and there a smile flickers, but mostly, the faces are grim. Oh no, the hooligans are back, they seem to say.
The Irish, it seems, are gone but not forgotten in Japan. Over three months since the Republic of Ireland team said sayonara to their great eastern football adventure, a group of fans is campaigning to bring them back.
"The whole experience of having the Irish here was just too great to have it all end with the World Cup, says Maki Ikeda, who runs an Irish soccer fan club in Tokyo. "We want the team to play a friendly with Japan."
The impact of the World Cup in insular and recession-weary Japan was enormous, so it's a safe bet to assume that slightly deranged fans, suffering from soccer cold turkey, have been trooping through the offices of the football association for months. Hordes of samba-dancing wannabe Brazilians, and Union Jack-clad Beckhamites, right?
"Er, no. This is the first time this has happened," says football association spokesman Toshiyaki Kobayashi. Mr Kobayashi accepts a petition with 1,000 signatures from the soccer delegation, who are all now sweating underneath layers of football kits and regulation suits in the overheated office.
"Very impressive," he says, looking at his watch. But he isn't getting away that easily. One by one, the fans explain why they want Ireland back.
"The Irish played the ideal game and had the ideal fans," says Kaori Kinoshita. "They had guts and never gave up, and when they lost they accepted it gracefully with, but with their heads held high. They made a lot of friends in Japan."
Hairdresser Hosone Makoto, who has his unruly mop tied back with a "Celtic Tiger" headband, agrees.
He learned to love the Irish when the fans kidnapped him and brought him to a pub.
Now let's be honest, I say. Some fans can be scary the way they latch onto a team. How about Japan's Beckhamite women, who marched their boyfriends to the barbers for a Mohican. Or the ones that abandoned job and home for the lonely life of a soccer groupie.
"That's completely different to what we're about," says Ms Ikeda. "The sort of women who liked Beckham just didn't understand football. I don't want to criticise England - they were great. But they don't have the roughness or passion, or the guts of Ireland. The Irish aren't trendy, but they played with such spirit. Give me a Roy Keane over a Beckham any day."
Ah, the Keane issue raises its ugly head. Where, I wonder, do they stand?
"I know Irish people like their heroes," says Ms Kinoshita, but as Japanese, we would prefer he played for the team. It just doesn't seem practical to us for him to not play for everyone."
Ms Ikeda is harsher. "He's talented but a troublemaker and the Japanese would have liked the team with or without him. I really hope they don't dump Mick McCarthy because of this row."
Mission accomplished, the shirts come off and are stuffed into handbags and briefcases. On the way out, Ms Ikeda tells me she has already sent a fax to the Football Association of Ireland asking for the friendly to be set up. "Put a good word in for me," she says.
And the fans head off to their jobs as translators, travel guides and office workers.