Hong Kong champions Kitchee FC were founded in 1931 and are one of the oldest sports clubs in the region.
Following the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in 1939, Kitchee went out of business. The club’s administrative offices in Wan Chai were also hit by a Japanese bomb and all of their stored literature was destroyed.
However, once the Japanese left Hong Kong in 1945, the government revived the football scene and Kitchee FC returned.
The club have won the Hong Kong First Division four times, and claimed their first title for 47 years in 2011.
Kitchee faced Chelsea and Blackburn in the 2011 Barclays Asia Trophy last summer, while they have beaten Italian giants AC Milan and Juventus in previous friendlies.
Copyright 2013 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source 28 Mar 2012
