Whitfield reader Jim Henderson says he heard on a TV quiz recently that North Korea had beaten Italy 1-0 in a World Cup Finals match.
“The quizmaster said it was in England in 1966 that North Korea beat Italy 1-0,” opened Jim, who is originally from Cupar.
“By all accounts, the likes of AC Milan, Juventus and Inter Milan were some of the top teams in Europe at the time, so surely Italy must have been favourites to win the actual trophy?
“What was the story or the reasons behind this scoreline?”
The 1966 World Cup Finals was held in England and it gave blanket coverage of all games for the first time as TV was wakening up to the fact that soccer sells and sells big.
I can vividly remember this game at Middlesbrough’s Ayresome Park even as a 14-year-old as it did, indeed, send shockwaves around the football world.
It also put goalscorer Pak Doo-Ik into the football history books.
It has to be said, though, that Italy lost a player, Giacomo Bulgarelli (Bologna), after half-an-hour with a knee injury.
Soon after, came what proved to be the winner and North Korea became the darlings of World Cup football.
One match reporter described it thus: ‘A North Korean long ball from the halfway line was thumped back downfield by an Italian defender but only as far as an onrushing North Korean defender. He delivered a thunderous headed ball that took one high bound into the path of Pak Doo-Ik.
Pak was 24-years-old. He kept his cool and slotted the ball past Enrico Albertosi.
The sword had been thrust into the beast.
As you would imagine, 10-man Italy were camped in the North Korea penalty box for most of the remainder of the game but the Asian side held out for a marvellous victory.’
The Italy team went home to hails of condemnation and abuse by their media and fans ‘welcoming’ them back at the airport.
Team manager Edmondo Fabbri was immediately sacked and replaced by Ferruccio Valcareggi, who coached jointly with Inter Milan manager Helenio Herrera before taking over alone in 1967.
Two years after Italy’s greatest humiliation, they led the Italians to the European Championship, and 24 months after that took them to the World Cup Final in Mexico, where they went down 4-1 to one of the greatest Brazilian teams ever.
No disgrace there.
But back to North Korea and their World Cup adventure certainly didn’t end after the Italy match as an even bigger shock (if that was possible!) looked to be on the cards in their next game.
This time it was a quarter-final tie against Portugal, who, of course, had Eusebio, one of the best players in the world and reckoned by some to rival Pele as THE greatest!
After 25 minutes, they had stunned the Portuguese with a 3-0 lead and looked ready to continue their remarkable run.
Then Eusebio, of Benfica, intervened.
The Black Panther, playing in his favoured inside-left position, scored his first goal two minutes after North Korea’s third and ended the day with four goals in leading his country to five unanswered scores and a 5-3 win.
If you’ve got a story to share with John, email: jbrown@dcthomson.co.uk.
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