
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.

7,720 Listeners

371 Listeners

884 Listeners

1,067 Listeners

5,550 Listeners

1,793 Listeners

960 Listeners

587 Listeners

1,734 Listeners

1,020 Listeners

2,102 Listeners

1,925 Listeners

499 Listeners

109 Listeners

48 Listeners

40 Listeners

417 Listeners

732 Listeners

235 Listeners

164 Listeners

71 Listeners

3,166 Listeners

732 Listeners

1,004 Listeners