Straits Times Nov 27^th 2001 (Singapore)

'Missing' N. Korean stars

BEIJING - It is one of the greatest and most mysterious sporting stories ever - North Korea's 1966 World Cup side beat Italy in perhaps the biggest shock football has seen and then vanishes, never to be heard of again.

Still treated as heroes are (from left) Myong Rye Hyon, Pak Sung Jin, Oak Do Ik, Yang Song Guk, Ri Chan Myung, Rim Jung Sing, Im Seng Hwi and Han Bong Jin.---AFP

But now, 35 years after its triumph, the great lost team has been tracked down by two English fans intent on making a film about the players.

The North Koreans' story has all the elements of a fairy tale. Playing in England, with whom their country had been at war just 13 years before, they won the hearts of local fans in a 1-0 win over a star-studded Italian side.

In contrast to the well-paid Italians, the Koreans - average height 1.67 metres - reportedly spent two years training at a military barracks, with some even whispering of enforced celibacy as part of the regime.

They were eventually dispatched in the quarter-finals by a Eusenio-inspired Portugal and went back to their isolated communist nation.

Rumour and legend took over, including tales the players had been banished to labour camps after reports of alcohol-fuelled victory parties.

However, after four years of effort, a British film crew operating on a shoestring budget returned from North Korea last week, having tracked down and interviewed most of the team.

Nick Bonner and Dan Gordon - a North Korea expert and a football-mad television director, respectively - returned with the heartening news that, far from imprisoned, the seven surviving stars seem to be treated as national heroes.

Video footage the pair brought shows the jovial former ''Red Mosquitoes'' larking around on a football pitch wearing blazers weighed down almost to their ankles with sporting medals and other honours.

Pak Do Ik, who scored against Italy, is still seemingly seen by North Koreans as the equivalent of Pele, Ronaldo, and Michael Owen rolled into one.

''Even now, he is perhaps the most famous star inside North Korea,'' said Bonner.

The pair, all but broke, now plan to raise more finance to edit the footage into a documentary, provisionally called The Game Of Their Lives.

They are keenly aware that in North Korea, often nothing is what it seems, but remain convinced most of what they witnessed was at least close to the truth.

''We were invited into the players' houses, we met their grandchildren, we went to parties. It all seemed genuine,'' said Gordon.

''The human side was what we were after and the human side was what we got.'' - AFP