"I was very disappointed, very sad. I should have graduated in 1952. I regret that, but that was China's situation."

Chen and his team mates were now full-time footballers and after a tour of China by a Hungary team who later in 1953 thrashed England at Wembley, they were dispatched to Europe.

"After their visit, our government top man decided to send a youth team to train in Hungary," he said. "That top man was Deng Xiaoping.

"We stayed there two years and we learned a lot. We improved a lot."

The team went home confident they could put up a good showing at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics but the dispute over the recognition of Taiwan intervened.

"We were in a training camp in Guangzhou and at the last minute we pulled out," said Chen. "We were very disappointed, by that time we were a very good team."

Two years later, Chen was made player coach of the national team.

"We'd left FIFA so couldn't play official international matches, so we just played friendlies," he said. "In the closing ceremony of China's First National Games we beat the Hungarian Olympic team, we gave them a great shock.

"In 1958 we twice drew 1-1 with the Soviet Union in Guangzhou. In 1964 I stopped as coach because in China there were big economic problems so the domestic league stopped."

CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Two years later, Mao Zedong unleashed the Cultural Revolution.

"During the so-called Cultural Revolution, sport just stopped and that was the start of the decline of football in China," Chen said. "At the Chinese Football Association (CFA), we had nothing to do."

Chen's Helsinki medal is still displayed at his Beijing apartment alongside awards from FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) that reflect a lifetime of work in soccer.

But he has only a dozen or so photographs of his playing days.

"Old memories," he said, flicking through the slim album. "Only a few left, the others were destroyed in the Cultural Revolution."

Chen returned to work at the CFA in 1974, four years before China was reinstated by FIFA and five before his country's return to the Olympic movement.

He rose to be vice-chairman and held positions at FIFA and the AFC, later acting as a consultant to China's women when they finished runners-up at the 1996 Olympics and 1999 World Cup.

The poor state of Chinese soccer still bothers Chen and while he is looking forward to watching the 2008 Olympics, he will not be leaving his couch.

"I'll watch it on television, it's too crowded for me now. The Beijing Olympics will be a great success, but our football team..." he said with a shake of the head.