MY favourite World Cup story concerns the improbable cultural connection that continues to exist between Middlesbrough and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

This bond was formed during the 1966 World Cup when the North Korean team played all of their group matches at Middlesbrough’s Ayresome Park.

That the North Koreans were present at all seemed to have surprised the football and cultural authorities of 1960s Britain. While Soviet Russia was engaged in the intricate geo-political choreography of the Cold War and could thus be observed and monitored, North Korea was more bashful about appearing on the world stage. And so they were “for the watchin”.

Westerners couldn’t have imagined back then that the citizens of North Korea played football, let alone be any good at it. How could they be? After completing their 22-hour shifts hawking vegetables then home to a bowl of thin gruel they wouldn’t have had the energy for football, the corrupt and indolent pastime of western capitalism. And let’s face it: their lives as rural serfs had made them look a bit on the small side.

Yet somehow they had evidently become very good at football. In a run of games that captivated Teesside they defeated Italy, one of the favourites to win the World Cup. At one point in their quarter-final against Portugal they were three goals up before succumbing to their world-class opponents.

What had also enthralled the Middlesbrough people, besides the quality of the North Koreans’ football, was the spirit in which they played it: their fitness levels were astonishing and they were devoid of any cynicism. And so, the seeds of something more lasting between Middlesbrough and North Korea were formed.

As the west’s attitude to this country descended into fear and loathing, Middlesbrough and North Korea maintained their own curious little détente. It seemed that the citizens of the DPRK had rarely been afforded such a welcome as they’d experienced in England’s gnarled north-east.

You’re tempted to suggest that this was rooted in a shared sense of alienation and that these northern English knew what it was like to be marginalised by centres of power. But maybe it was just human warmth and generosity, stripped of all political leverage and reciprocated over the decades.

As football’s World Cup has grown to become the world’s pre-eminent sporting and cultural event it’s become a target of political adventurers. The tournament has been hosted in several locations whose human rights don’t bear close scrutiny. Yet, this year’s tournament in Qatar seems to have lifted the fret level among enlightened and progressive westerners to DEFCON 1.

Suddenly, we became interested in Qatar’s attitudes towards women, gay people and migrant workers, but not interested enough to know about the lucrative arms trade our government conducts with it, or even to protest about it. And so we become armchair activists for a few days so that people know we care about such issues.

At the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich everyone was appalled at the slaughter of 11 innocent Israeli athletes by the Palestinian Black September group. But not one country thought it sufficient reason to withdraw their teams or to cancel the entire event. After a few days of outrage, Britain settled back down to watch David Wilkie, Mary Peters and Captain Mark Phillips collect some medals.

The same people are ever-vigilant for any signs of anti-Islamic sentiment in the UK, but this stops when they’re asked to respect the laws and traditions of Islamic nations. Perhaps we should be thankful that some of these countries, with whom we form military alliances and conduct commerce, choose not to look too closely at life for marginalised people in the UK.

We’re currently in the process of making the world’s most inhumane anti-migrant legislation. Most of our political parties think that men can masquerade as women and that gay people should be made to have sex with them. They turn a blind eye when men issue sexually violent threats against women who refuse to bend the knee to the cult of gender self-ID. Yet, we accuse Qatar and other countries of the Middle East of harbouring medieval social attitudes.

Certainly there’s a case for saying FIFA, the world’s governing body, chose wrongly in handing the World Cup to Qatar at a time when the women’s game is in the process of making a global breakthrough. But what do I know? Television pictures show us that there are many women among the hundreds of thousands of football supporters thronging Doha right now. Initial reports of official crackdowns on liberal westerners have evaporated. Inevitably, we part-time liberals have parked our sanctimony and got stuck into what has been a brilliant World Cup.

The BBC and ITV have both wrung their hands dry at trying to solve their multi-million-pound dilemmas about cashing in so much from a tournament being held in a country that they so obviously revile. In the end the money and their social media brands won out … but some of them courageously wore rainbow bands in their glass studios. They must surely be in line for some kind of bravery award.

Maybe they’ll donate their fees to refugee workers' charities. None of them even had to be there if they cared that much. Would their semi-literate punditry have been undermined if they’d simply done it from London?

No other popular festival on earth brings together such a diversity of cultures as much as the World Cup. For five weeks, 32 nations – several with serious and unfinished business among themselves – can live and play with each other.

An article in last week’s Economist magazine suggested that the televised World Cup games had even begun to cause unrest on the streets of China. “As Chinese viewers of the World Cup noticed before the censors got to work, they are locked down when other countries are free and mask-less.”

Of course, some old tropes die hard. African and Asian teams are still plucky and you can almost hear the sound of their heads being patted when any of them have reached the last 16 of the tournament.

One former English international player patronised the US team for developing its own professional league in the last few years. He seems not to know that professional football has been organised in the US since 1968. Nor could he tell the difference between Canada and North America.

Other things don’t change either. It’s been 24 years since Scotland last competed at this level. And judging by what’s been evident in Qatar that won’t be ending any time soon.

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