Seoul Glow: The Story Behind Britain’s First Olympic Hockey Gold

Seoul Glow tells the story of the Great Britain men’s hockey team who won gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Little to the team’s knowledge, the final caught the British public’s imagination as they beat rivals West Germany in the gold-medal match. After Sean Kerly’s semi-final heroics and Imran Sherwani’s double in the final, BBC commentator Barry Davies uttered the now infamous line: ‘Where were the Germans? But, frankly, who cares?’ Victory, for a team of amateurs, who had either quit their jobs or taken holiday to play in Seoul, propelled the team to celebratory heights on their return to British shores; it was GB’s first hockey gold in the post-war era and followed an eight-year plan for a major title. The story also reveals how the team was inspirationally led by the late Roger Self, the manager who gelled his players into Olympic title holders.