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SINCE the Asian Football Confederation followed their European counterparts, UEFA, by launching inter-club competition in 1967, Hong Kong's apathy towards the AFC events was matched by many of the countries around the vast continent.

 Times they are a changing, however, and before the start of this season's two AFC competitions, the territory's two representatives, Eastern and South China, vowed to give it their all.

 Eastern, drawn against the flagship of Japanese football, Yomiuri Verdy, in the first round of the Asian Club Championship, went out 3-2 on aggregate, winning the first leg 1-0 but losing the return match in Tokyo 3-1 in front of 44,000 J.League fans in the National Stadium.

 The Asian Cup Winners' Cup, in only its fourth season, gave South China a first-round tie with China's Dalian, from Liaoning province.

 Sturdy and rugged, the mainlanders were caught out by South China's pace and flair and fell to a 2-0 defeat at Mongkok Stadium.

 Right-winger Loh Wai-chi scored the first in the 40th minute and striker Au Wai-lun added the second just two minutes from full-time.

 Now the fun began for the Caroliners.

 The second leg was played four days later in the cold and bleak seaport town and attracted a noisy capacity crowd of 35,000 fans.

 Protecting their 2-0 lead, it needed courage and discipline from the Caroliners to keep out their hungry, fired-up opponents.

 With a tense and often bruising contest exactly one hour old, Dalian broke the visitors' resistance with a header from centre forward Shi Lei.

 Suddenly, the 2-0 victory on a balmy autumn evening in Mongkok just four days earlier seemed a million miles away as the hostility of the home support carried Dalian forward.

 There were no more goals, however, and South China were through to the quarter-finals, 2-1 on aggregate, thanks to a magnificent rearguard action.

 Angry fans lit dozens of fires on the concrete terraces and the South China players and officials, packed into two mini-buses and a dusty old saloon car, were pelted with missiles as the convoy, under heavy police guard, sped back to their seaside headquarters.

 But what a warm welcome awaited South China in Calcutta, where they were to play East Bengal in the first leg of the quarter-final on November 15.

 Garlands of flowers greeted the team leaders in the hotel reception and each member of the party was given a tilak mark on their forehead.

 The match itself was a new experience altogether, with firecrackers exploding in all corners of the ground as South China eased their way to a comfortable 1-0 victory, with a second-half goal from Loh.

 The second leg was easy for the Caroliners. Au scored twice, taking his tally in the competition to three, and there was one apiece for Marko Perinovic and Chiu Chung-man in a 4-1 canter for a 5-1 overall victory.

 Their semi-final opponents should have been J.League outfit the Yokohama Marinos, who had won the Asian Cup Winners' Cup the previous two years under their Nissan name.

 But the Marinos, blaming the delays by South China and Dalian in staging the first-round game, withdrew because of a cluttered domestic fixture list in December and January.

 Al-Qadisiyah, from Al-Khubar city in the eastern region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was established in 1967 on the amalgamation of two clubs - Al-Shuelah and Al-Wahda.

 After beating Bahrain's Al-Wehda 4-2 on aggregate in the first round, the Saudis marched straight into the semi-finals when their quarter-final opponents from the Maldives, New Radiant, withdrew.

 Qatar's Al-Arabi were held to a 1-1 draw at home in the semi-final, Al-Qadisiyah's equaliser coming in injury time from substitute Shamo Quaye.

 In the return leg in Dammam, a single goal from Brazilian play-maker Jose Carlos Garcia was enough.

 So the scene is set for the final - and, at last, a grand sporting occasion at the new Hong Kong Stadium.



Cup kings of the continent on ultimate road to glory