
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


A fuzzy team photo from the 1980s sends Tim Whewell on a journey to track down football players from a small town in northern Syria who were once the champions of Aleppo province. In the last four years of war their hometown, Mare'a, has become a war zone - bombed by the Assad regime, besieged by Islamic State, subject even to a mustard gas attack. And the civil war has torn through what was once a band of friends - some now pro-rebel, some pro-regime. They're scattered across Syria and beyond, some fighting near Mare'a, some in refugee camps abroad. What have they gone through since they won that cup? And do they think they can ever be reunited?
Shabnam Grewal producing.
By BBC Radio 44.7
7575 ratings
A fuzzy team photo from the 1980s sends Tim Whewell on a journey to track down football players from a small town in northern Syria who were once the champions of Aleppo province. In the last four years of war their hometown, Mare'a, has become a war zone - bombed by the Assad regime, besieged by Islamic State, subject even to a mustard gas attack. And the civil war has torn through what was once a band of friends - some now pro-rebel, some pro-regime. They're scattered across Syria and beyond, some fighting near Mare'a, some in refugee camps abroad. What have they gone through since they won that cup? And do they think they can ever be reunited?
Shabnam Grewal producing.

7,669 Listeners

377 Listeners

891 Listeners

1,062 Listeners

5,475 Listeners

1,801 Listeners

969 Listeners

593 Listeners

1,761 Listeners

1,054 Listeners

2,108 Listeners

2,080 Listeners

477 Listeners

107 Listeners

44 Listeners

41 Listeners

404 Listeners

741 Listeners

238 Listeners

161 Listeners

76 Listeners

3,204 Listeners

730 Listeners

1,034 Listeners