THEY have escaped a closed world and crossed half the globe for the chance of a cup of tea and a kick-about on a North-East housing estate.

After 36 years of isolation, the other boys of '66 will today return to the place where they made football history in the World Cup.

The fact that Ayresome Park, the former home of Middlesbrough FC and the scene of football minnows North Korea's greatest football triumph, against Italy, is now a housing estate makes no odds to the sheer romance of the team's story and their return to the West.

At 9am today, the seven surviving sexagenarians will walk along a street named The Holgate after the Boro fans' old stand and, in a front garden, will see a bronze cast of football studs in the exact spot where striker Pak do Ik scored his famous goal against Italy, the only score of the game.

Afterwards the team, who in the closed society of their homeland had not the slightest clue they are held in awe by football fans across the world, will have a kick-about in the street before having a cup of tea at the home of lifelong Middlesbrough fan Rob Nichols.

Mr Nichols, editor of Boro fanzine Fly Me to the Moon, who lives in a house called The Turnstile, said: "It is so exciting that the North Koreans are coming to my house. I was too young to see them myself, but my dad saw them beat Italy and I grew up on tales of their exploits. My dad will be making the tea."

The trip, organised by documentary maker Dan Gordon, Phil Parkin and his team after five years work on a film about the team, is thought to be the biggest cultural exchange between North Korea and the West since the 1966 World Cup. The heroes will attend Middlesbrough's game with Leeds on Saturday after a walk around the town centre.

A full list of events, including a sportsman's dinner with Jack Charlton at Boro's new home, The Cellnet Riverside Stadium, on Friday, and information on the documentary is available on website www.thegameoftheir lives.co