Shanghai Star

Games of their lives

Shanghai Star. 2001-11-29

Giant killers relive World Cup glory

"When we beat Italy, we knew we had achieved what had been asked of us. We had won for the fatherland. After the match we were all crying."Pak Do-ik

BEIJING - In one of soccer's greatest upsets, a team of squat, crew-cut North Koreans emerged in 1966 and to everyone's amazement battled through to the quarterfinals of the World Cup.

Then, just as suddenly as they arrived on football's premier stage, the giant-killing North Koreans vanished.

That was the year England won the World Cup on home turf.

But while England's victorious heroes live on in fame, few people have any recollection of the first Asian team to make the World Cup finals.

For 35 years, North Korea has been silent about the fate of a team that humbled favourites Italy with a 1-0 defeat and sent them packing from the competition.

Many assumed North Korea would shower them with awards and hail them with military parades at the height of the Cold War.

But there were also rumours in the Republic of Korea (ROK) that the official silence signified something more sinister, that the soccer heroes had fallen from favour and had been packed off to labour camps, possibly tortured, and even executed.

Now, North Korea has set the record straight.

In October, it allowed a pair of soccer-mad British film-makers to interview the seven surviving team members for a documentary.

Their film - "The Games of Their Lives" - features unprecedented footage of the players, many in full military uniform weighed down by medals, describing their experiences in England in 1966 and their lives in North Korea since.

"The Great Leader had told us to win one or two matches," says midfielder Pak Do-ik in one of the interviews, recalling the words of late North Korean leader Kim Il-song.

"When we beat Italy, we knew we had achieved what had been asked of us. We had won for the fatherland. After the match we were all crying," says Pak, who scored the winning goal.

The Italians, including some of the world's wealthiest players, were pelted with tomatoes when they sneaked back home on a midnight flight.

Red team colours

North Korea qualified for the World Cup finals by beating Australia for the single berth allocated to Asia, Oceania and Africa.

But they still had to overcome diplomatic objections from Britain, which fought against the Communist North in the Korean War and had no official ties with Pyongyang.

Britain first tried to deny the team visas, then sought - equally unsuccessfully - to stop them flying the North Korean flag at their matches.

When the team eventually made it to British soil, they were 1,000-to-one outsiders to win the World Cup.

All that was known about them was they had trained for two years in a military-style camp and, at an average height of just 5 foot 6 inches, were dwarfed by almost all their opponents.

But the crowds in the northern industrial city of Middlesbrough roared on the North Koreans during the first round playoffs, delighted that their red team colours resembled that of the local side.

Chants of "Korea! Korea!" echoed round the stadium after their victory over Italy and more than 3,000 Middlesbrough fans travelled to the city of Liverpool for the Portugal match, which North Korea lost 5-3.

"Before we arrived in Britain, we were not sure how the people of England would treat us," recalled centre half Rim Jung-son.

"We thought we would be shunned," he said.

"But the Mayor of Middlesbrough and all the people went out of their way to make us feel at home. And I still cannot understand why they did it, but I am glad they did."

Foreign ladies

Why North Korea agreed to the documentary is a mystery, although the timing seems more than coincidental.

ROK will host the World Cup with Japan next year and there is an open invitation for North Korea to host one or several of the matches. But Pyongyang must decide if it wants to take up the offer before the December 1 draw.

Although diplomatic talks with the South have ground to a halt, hosting a World Cup match would help to improve North Korea's image as it tentatively joins the international community after years of isolation.

The film helps debunk a recent South Korean media report that many of the players were banished to mines and farms for cavorting at a "wild party with foreign ladies" before their defeat by Portugal.

But film makers Daniel Gordon and Nick Bonner hope their work can rise above the bitter political rivalry between North and South - still technically at war as the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended only in truce.

"I have come to realize that these players were playing for their country and the fatherland like no other team in the tournament," Gordon said.

"This really meant everything to them, more so than to the England players," he said. "This was an extension of war, they had a point to prove. But more than that, they showed how football can bring ordinary people together."

Warm memories

Inspired by his father's stories about the 1966 World Cup, Gordon decided to track down the North Koreans in 1997 and contacted Bonner, who was running tours into North Korea.

After three years of lobbying the North Korean Government, they were finally allowed to go to Pyongyang for 10 days in October. While there, they met the seven team members, plus their trainer and cameraman.

"You are the first British person I have spoken to for 35 years," team member Han Bong-jin declared on meeting Gordon.

"It is a big honour for me to be talking to you because I have such warm memories of the British people."

Now in their 50s and 60s, most of the team are involved in football in some way, mostly training or managing local sides, and deny being sent to mines and farms, according to Gordon.

(Agencies via Xinhua)

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