North Korea has its own Cup history: Players who helped upset Italy in 1966 are surprised, but happy to be remembered, Owen Slot reports. 

The Times, London 
21 June 2002
Ottawa Citizen

LONDON - Korean soccer heroes come in rare and exciting bursts, and there tends to be quite a lull in between. Ahn Jung-hwan, who dispatched Italy from the World Cup three days ago, is the present superstar. 

To find another, you have to go back 36 years, to Pak Doo Ik, who dispatched Italy from the World Cup in 1966. If you really wanted to find him, though, you could take a stroll through the capital of North Korea, Pyongyang, down a road with a name translated into English as Sport Street, where Pak lives in his two-floor apartment. 

However, taking a stroll through Pyongyang is somewhat easier said than done. Access to North Korea is close to impossible. It would be simpler for Saudi Arabia to keep a clean sheet than for an average Western tourist to be granted a visa to cross from South Korea into the who-knows-what that exists in the brother country over the border. 

It is, indeed, intriguing to contemplate that, while South Korea dances to the hypnotic beat of the World Cup, there is near silence next door. There is little mention of it in the state-owned newspapers in North Korea, and television coverage is restricted to nightly programs showing games on a delay of two or three days. As well, televisions are not exactly everyday household goods in a country blighted by seven years of food shortages, dependent on huge shipments of international aid and where almost 10 million citizens are estimated to be malnourished. 

"It's difficult to say who knows about the South Korean victory," one diplomat in Pyongyang said. "I'm pretty sure that those working with the international community will know about it and the word will probably spread." 

North Korea, though, was never keen to join the party. FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, went to some diplomatic lengths to attempt to organize a World Cup venue in North Korea --even if only to stage just one game there -- but was shunned. There was not even a North Korean team entered into the World Cup qualifying competition. 

Yet those in North Korea who have learned of South Korea's remarkable progress to the quarterfinals are thrilled. 

"They definitely think they are all Korean, so they'll have been shouting for South Korea," said Dan Gordon, a Westerner who should know. Gordon, a television producer, spent four years wooing the appropriate officials in Pyongyang, and he was rewarded last year when, at last, he arrived with his cameras to find out what had become of Pak and North Korea's 1966 team. 

Little has been heard of the team since its remarkable run, which took them past Italy and all the way to the quarterfinals. There have been tales that they were imprisoned for womanizing, for drinking, for not winning the World Cup. Gordon was the first to discover the truth. His documentary film is called The Game of their Lives, a reference to that 1-0 victory over Italy at old Ayresome Park in Middlesbrough, England. It brings us the seven members of the 1966 team who are still alive, plus their coach. Gordon got on with them so well that he is hoping to take them to England in October for the Sheffield documentary festival, and a return visit to Middlesbrough. 

In Pyongyang, he found them in good health. There were no stories of imprisonment. 

"As far as I could tell, they seemed to live a good life," he said. "They all got state apartments because of their achievements. And the fact that they're in Pyongyang is a statement in itself." 

They also all live in the same complex on Sport Street. Pak has a car, unlike all the others, and his is the only two-floor apartment. Almost all of them remained in the game. Pak coached the national team for several years; Yang Song Guk, the left wing from the 1966 World Cup team, is coach of the Pyongyang cigarette factory workers' team; Ri Chan Myong, the goalkeeper, runs the army team. They were amazed that foreigners were producing a documentary on their 1966 conquests. 

"They are all national heroes in their own country still," Gordon said. "But they were so pleased that they had not been forgotten elsewhere. Han Bong Jin, the left half, ran up to us when we met and said that he loved Englishmen and that he hadn't seen an Englishman since 1966. He also asked if the old mayor of Middlesbrough was still alive. He was very sad when I said that he had died." 

The hospitality that the North Koreans received from the mayor and the people of Middlesbrough still remains fresh in their minds. 

"We knew Britain had participated in the Korean War," Pak says in the film. "We thought them to be the enemy, but they welcomed us, they clapped us. We never thought our national flag would be flying in England. I am convinced the attitude of the Middlesbrough crowd affected our games." 

Pak also weighed in with loftier opinions. 

"I learned that sport is not just about winning, it's also about diplomatic relations and peace," he said. In that case he may well ask himself what his 1966 team achieved. He certainly asks himself what could be achieved if Korea was not split in two. 

"There should be unification," he said. "If we were one (soccer) team, we would do very well." 

The question, then, is: If Italy was beaten 1-0 by just the south of Korea, what would have happened against the whole of Korea? Pipe dreams, perhaps. Pak Doo Ik and his countrymen would probably settle for just a glimpse of what the party is like next door. 

Photo: Greg Baker, The Associated Press / South Koreansupporters' cards spell out 'Again 1966,' recalling North Korea'sWorld Cup victory over Italy that year, before South Korea'ssecond-round match against Italy at Daejeon, South Korea, onTuesday. South Korea won 2-1 in overtime.