The Battered Champions of Aleppo

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.

You can listen to The Battered Champions of Aleppo online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Battered Champions of Aleppo is an episode from The Documentary: Archive 2015 by BBC.

This episode is 26:57 long.

This episode was published on Dec 31, 2015.

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