PAEEK: a club in exile
When Turkish troops annexed the top half of Cyprus in 1974, an estimated 6,000 people died and thousands of Greek Cypriot refugees fled to the south of the Mediterranean island.
Some sports clubs that were a big part of people’s lives before the war simply disappeared but Podosfairiki Athlitiki Enosi Eparxeias Kerynias – better known as PAEEK – survived.
Some players from the club, which was founded in the harbour town of Kyrenia in1953, were taken prisoner but a small group of Kyrenians, led by then-mayor Stelios Katsellis, fought to keep the club alive. For years, PAEEK were homeless, constantly borrowing fields or stadiums, before eventually leasing government-owned land in the Strovolos suburb of Nicosia, some 22 miles inland, to build a stadium.
“Our club survived to give a sense of existence and a glimpse of hope to the people of Kyrenia,” says former president Andreas Stavrides.
“We couldn’t afford to
