22 June 2002
NPR: Weekend All Things Considered

KORVA COLEMAN, host: They were fit, they were foreign, and they shocked the world in 1966. They were the North Korean soccer team that defeated the Italians in a World Cup match held in Liverpool, England. 

(Soundbite of match) 

Unidentified Announcer: And they won! Good heavens. They won. North Korea has beaten Italy. What is going on here? They are delighted. This is fantastic. 

COLEMAN: The team's members became worldwide celebrities and then disappeared back into the closed country. British soccer fans and filmmakers Nick Bonner and Dan Gordan spent the last year chronicling that 1966 victory. They traveled to North Korea to interview surviving members of the Cinderella team. Their movie is called "The Game of Their Lives." Nick Bonner says he grew up hearing stories of the amazing match. 

Mr. NICK BONNER (Filmmaker): The games in England is a sort of--it's a fable that goes around up in the northeast of England. It's still talked about. It's of these North Korean team who came over to the Northeast to play for the World Cup, and everyone said, `Well, they haven't got a chance' and not only created a shock throughout the world by beating the champion--sort of one of the top teams that had the most expensive paid players, the Italians, but they were also adopted by this city in the Northeast, Middlesbrough, where they played their opening games. And they still talk about these North Koreans who might as have well have sort of flown in from the moon, if you like. Britain and jointly with America and United Nations had been at war in the sort of 1950-'53 Korean War. And these players came over sort of 13 years later, and they were expecting to be treated with great hostility. And what ended up was that football--I think as Pele said, the beautiful game--neutralized everything and people had a sort of talking point. 

COLEMAN: You were just in North Korea and you met some of these team members from the 1966 team. What are they doing? What are they like? 

Mr. BONNER: When we made the film--it was five years before we'd got the footage of 1966, so I knew the players as basically young 19-year-olds and 21-year-olds sort of playing on the pitch. So when I went to North Korea, they'd basically aged 37 years, and I had one hero--this was Li Chan-Myong, who was the goalkeeper, nicknamed the Cat. And just when you sort of met him--I mean, he was--give us a great big sort of hug and said, you know, `Welcome,' and, you know, `You are our heroes for coming over here to sort of find out our story,' one of the players said, `I haven't seen an Englishman for 37 years.' 

COLEMAN: How do they remember the game? What happened to them when they came back? 

Mr. BONNER: The--they remember the Italian game, where they beat the Italians 1-nil with a great smile. It's almost by chance that we'd noticed there'd been a North Korean film crew who'd gone along in 1966. And we'd pointed this out to the North Koreans, and they said, `Well, do you want to see the film we made?' And we went, `Well, bloody hell, yeah. We'll have a look at that.' 

COLEMAN: Yeah. 

Mr. BONNER: And it was shot in color, and it started, and not only was it of the football matches but it was also of them arriving in England. But the best thing was we actually got their footage of them coming back in Dip Yong Yang(ph). It's fantastic stuff. They're coming off the plane and they're carried shoulder-high into the city. And at... 

COLEMAN: Not exactly toward a prison camp, I take it. 

Mr. BONNER: Not ex--no. I mean, you know, all I can say with my hand on heart is that when they came back and for the subsequent weeks after that, they were definitely heroes. What happened in the intervening years I don't know, but what I do know is that now they're also held as heroes. Dan and I were coming out of China and we were given this film. They actually said, `Well, you know, we don't want you to have sort of a bad copy. Why don't you take the original,' which certainly we would never let our original film out. But they--we took these seven rolls--great clunky rolls--we decided we'd better go by train to avoid the X-ray machines. And as we got into Beijing station, we dropped one of the sort of balls that we'd got signed--one of the footballs, and the North Korean guard sort of picked it up and went, `Bloody hell, you got packed away Li Chan-Myong,' and all the--he sort of knew the players' names off by heart, and this is the sort of--basically they're still held in high esteem--these lads--from 1966. 

COLEMAN: Nick, what do these players remember about England? 

Mr. BONNER: This is probably the most special bit is that we got over there and one of the first things that Ho Mun Jing(ph) sort of said to me was, `Look, you know, how's the mayor of Middlesbrough?' I said, `I'm afraid he's dead.' 

COLEMAN: Oh, dear. 

Mr. BONNER: Which--well, it wasn't the best start, but the basic thing was that Middlesbrough holds you in the highest esteem. And they said, `Look, you send our love to that city.' And Lim Zoong-Sun, who was one of the defenders, said--he's got a wonderful sort of almost this Buddhist-like sort of way of speaking--he says, `It still remains a mystery to me,' and then pauses, and then goes, `how the people of Middlesbrough,' you know, `adopted us, how they sort of took us into their hearts.' And we--one of our plans is to take these players back to Middlesbrough, and it is almost like a second home. If we can get them back, you can bet your bottom dollar that they'll--you know, the crowds will be cheering. Their lads who made good have come back. 

COLEMAN: Nick, what was the reaction to your film when it was shown in South Korea? 

Mr. BONNER: It was--the film was shown uncut in South Korea, and it's going to be shown uncut in North Korea at the festival that must rival Cannes. It's the Pyongyang Film Festival for those punders out there, in September. It's also going to be broadcast live we hope on North Korean television. We were a bit worried about what it would be, but what we were told was that the normal rating for the program is 8 to 11 percent, and we got 18 percent of the share. So probably one in five people are watching it. 

One of the nicest things is we showed the film at one of the embassies here--at the Italian Embassy; the Italians were very good to sort of put on the film, having been the losing team. And we had representatives from both the North and South Korean embassies, and the greatest thing there was that they both enjoyed the film. In the last statement that is made in the film by Pak Doo Ik, who's the man who scored the goal--he's the most famous footballer in North Korea--he says that the lesson he learned was that football is good for diplomatic relations and, above all, peace. Now that sounds like quite a tall order, but, in fact, one of your very first things is to try and get two people speaking together--and a split nation speaking together, in fact, it seems to make a lot of sense. 

COLEMAN: Nick Bonner is the associate producer of the film "The Game of Their Lives." He spoke with us from Beijing. Nick, thanks so much. 

Mr. BONNER: Thanks so much. 

COLEMAN: For more information on "The Game of Their Lives," check our Web site at npr.org. 

(Soundbite of music) 

COLEMAN: This is NPR, National Public Radio.