Irish footballers return to China 50 years after historic tour akin to ‘going to the moon’

When Paddy Dwyer arrived in China in 1976, crowds jostled to catch a glimpse of him and his companions: the first Western football team to play in the country.

China at the time was emerging from the tumult of the Cultural Revolution, and on the brink of market reforms that would take the country from economic stagnation to explosive growth.

“All we could see was lines of people running beside our bus, trying to look in the windows, to see their first visual of a white person,” Dwyer said.

On the streets, “it was all bicycles”.

“There were very few cars to be seen,” he said.

Dwyer, then only 18, was captain of a squad from University College Dublin who had been invited to play a series of matches across China by the national football association.

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