The Making of The Game of Their Lives, Exclusive Free Documentary Access and More
Bonus Material for members of the By Their Own Compass Club
Well, football is officially not coming home. Turns out achieving a measly 1-0 lead before parking the bus doesn’t work against the world’s greatest living player. Who knew!
On the subject of throwing away a perfectly good lead, in our latest episode, we revisited the mother of all World Cup disappointments: 1966, when North Korea – yes, North Korea – went 3-0 up against Portugal in the quarter-finals and dared to dream, only to blow it in the second half. All of this much to the dismay of their new biggest fans, the English.
Still, at least the North Korean team had an excuse. As we learned in the episode, their tactical masterplan came directly from portly dictator Kim Il Sung, whose directive was simply to “run fast and kick hard”. Advice which, having watched England’s semi-final, is clearly no longer the least sophisticated game plan in World Cup history.
But it’s ok! Not bitter in defeat, Sarah has worked hard to secure our lovely paid subscribers a special treat for this week’s football-themed mailout: free access to the documentary The Game of Their Lives. It’s thanks to the film’s director, Dan Gordon, and Koryo Tours’ founder, Nicholas Bonner, that we know anything about the North Korean players after they returned home to the DPRK in 1966, so it’s a wonderful watch.
Follow the directions below to claim your free film, and scroll down for Nick Bonner’s first-hand account of how the documentary – and the DPRK team’s heartwarming 2013 return to England – came about.
