Their mission: to promote a little understanding through the universal language of the 'beautiful game'.

'I'd read about playing there on a tour company website and realised I'd love the opportunity to do that myself,' says Ian Mote, Colloids' 30-year-old central midfielder. 'Normally, I would have been the first to say 'no way', but when I found out about the football side of things, I asked around the team to see if anyone else was interested. I fully expected people to turn around and say 'you're having a laugh' - but everyone was interested.'

The tournament placed the Hong Kong amateur team against two local sides made up of regular players from the DPRK national travel company, as well as a team of Dutch expats from Beijing during the four-way tournament - only the second amateur football tour to the mysterious state. Colloids have been established in Hong Kong for more than 10 years, playing in the third division of local amateur Yau Yee league, with a squad featuring players from Hong Kong, England, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, the Netherlands and France.

After waiting three months for visas to be processed, approval was given for a group of 14 to visit Pyongyang via Beijing. Landing at the eerily quiet airport, a four-day trip into the world's most mysterious country began with anything but the intimidation some might expect. On the contrary, their arrival was a seemingly relaxed affair. 'It's hardly the busiest airport in the world after all,' says Chris Lambert, Colloids' 38-year-old left back. 'Our flight was the second - and last - plane to land that day.'

'There were a couple of guys who followed us around everywhere,' recalls 33-year-old midfielder Michael Ellism. 'We weren't allowed to take photos of the countryside, not from moving vehicles. All mobile phones were confiscated at the airport. But apart from the people watching us in the background, we were amazed at how quiet and empty everywhere seemed.

'The one thing you do notice is the number of people working in the paddy fields, even at 6pm on a Sunday.'

The team stayed at the Yanggakdo hotel, a resort they were not allowed to leave without a guide. Half an hour from the airport, the 'compound', as Ellis calls it, is situated on Yanggakdo (Sheep's Horn) Island, in the middle of the Taedon River that flows through central Pyongyang.

'We weren't allowed out unaccompanied,' says Mote of the resort, which includes a casino in which only foreigners are allowed to gamble, as well as a karaoke bar and restaurant. 'But then it was hardly Alcatraz either. Our tour guides would hang out with us a lot, and drink with us in the evenings. Honey, one of the guides, played guitar - one night one of the waitresses sang My Way, which seemed to come out of nowhere. She had a fantastic voice,' he says.

Their holiday snaps make for fascinating viewing - not least for the absence of people. Huge squares marked with white spots where people should stand during parades and ceremonies; monuments, temples, parks and statues - not a soul in sight. Pyongyang itself seems leafy and green, with manicured gardens and fountains. 'I was expecting a grimy city, but there're no factories, no cars and no pollution it seems,' says Ellis. 'You can almost see to the bottom of Taedon River, the water is so clear.'

The idea of shattering preconceptions through football tours was dreamt up by Beijing-based Englishman Nicholas Bonner, a filmmaker who first travelled to North Korea in 1989 and began leading tour groups there four years later, including this year's tour with the Colloids.

'A Korean friend of mine was studying in Beijing in 1989. His passion was football, as was mine,' he says over the phone from his Beijing-based Koryo Tours office. 'One day he just said, 'Why don't you come over and visit the country?'' Bonner obliged, and soon after embarked on his new career.

Football-obsessed, he then took it upon himself to track down the surviving members of North Korea's famed 1966 World Cup squad, who supplied the biggest shock world football had ever seen by knocking Italy out of the tournament in England. Having arrived in the country as unknown representatives of a shadowy communist regime - one which Britain, America and the UN had fought against 13 years before - the North Korean team left a huge impression, becoming the first Asian side to reach the World Cup quarter-finals. The record was only surpassed by their neighbours south of the 38th parallel two years ago, when South Korea co-hosted the tournament with Japan.

Thirty-five years after their triumph, Bonner discovered that, far from disappearing off the face of the Earth or ending up in labour camps (as many believed), the players had been enshrined as national heroes. Pak Do-ik, scorer of the winning goal against Italy, is regarded by North Koreans as Pele, Ronaldo and Michael Owen rolled into one. Bonner's resulting documentary, The Game of Our Lives, won plaudits across the world, while opening up increasing channels of communication in a North Korea happy to grant him access.

'It was a batty but beautiful idea,' he says. 'People said it can't be done, won't and never will be. But the North Korean authorities gave us unbelievable access once it was clear that our aim was about friendship and understanding. They recognised that we're coming from a different angle, in that we're not aid workers or businessmen - we're just interested in Korea, and that cultural exchange is our motivation.'

Indeed, as part of the tour, the members of the Colloids were taken to the demilitarised zone to meet some of the soldiers there. In the light of officials opening cross-border roads to make test runs for two railways between the North and South last weekend, the mood does seem to be shifting.

Bonner attests to this, as he was given unprecedented access to make his follow-up film, A State of Mind, which follows two North Korean schoolgirls and their families in the lead-up to the Mass Games, the annual synchronised showcase celebrating socialist realism and athleticism. He also plans to bring Bend It like Beckham - and the football coach responsible for training its stars - to the Pyongyang Film Festival in September.

'There's a quote by Pak Do-ik, scorer of the goal that knocked out Italy in 1966,' says Simon Cockerell, who helps run Koryo Tours with Bonner. 'He said, 'I learned that football is not only about the winning, wherever we go football can improve diplomatic relations and promote peace.' This might be overstating the case somewhat in terms of the tour that we just ran - I don't think peace will immediately spread around the world after a few football matches. But it's certainly not a negative thing - it's an apolitical event, a meeting on a sporting, human level. It's something that people can get together and talk about.'

The Colloids eventually took the competition with a 3-2 win over the North Korean 'B' team in the final. 'They passed the ball around so quickly,' says Mote. 'We found ourselves in the middle of a whirlwind at times. Afterwards, we spoke to the players, and although some had heard of David Beckham, to be honest Michael Owen and Ronaldo seemed more popular.'

'It was an amazing feeling, gaining friendship through football,' says Ellis. 'Everyone was mixing freely after the tournament ended.'

Bonner says: 'We had this big lunch planned and hadn't sorted out translators for everyone. A lot of the British guys spoke Japanese, so suddenly everyone was sitting down together, talking to each other freely in their second or third languages. It's times like that when you stand back and realise what a beautiful game football is.'