TODAY’S Page in History features the match report of the biggest upset in the World Cup: it’s from July 1966, when North Korea beat Italy at Ayresome Park in Middlesbrough.

The North Koreans played their three group stage matches in Middlesbrough in the course of a week, culminating in their 1-0 triumph over the fancied Italy, Pak Doo-Ik famously scoring in the 42 minute.

While on Teesside, the North Koreans developed a surprisingly close relationship with their hosts. The football and the relationship feature in a free talk, entitled When Middlesbrough Fell in Love With North Korea, being given at Middlesbrough Town Hall today, Saturday, May 4, at 11am by Dr Tosh Warwick of Manchester Metropolitan University, who is a Boro fan.

The talk is part of Local History Month, with the town hall is throwing itself into whole-heartedly as it celebrates its 130th anniversary and its £8m refurbishment. The talk is in the splendid courtroom, in which there are press benches at which generations of the region’s finest journalists have sat – and carved their names.

The grandly Gothic town hall is perhaps the career highlight of Darlington’s most renowned architect, GG Hoskins. Guided tours around it are being held on May 10 and 21 at 10.30am and 2pm, and on May 25 at 10.30am – for full details and to book, go to the middlesbroughtownhall.co.uk website.

And if you do go on a tour look out for Oscar. He is Middlesbrough’s most enduring ghost story – although no one has been able to find any real evidence that he ever existed.

Oscar is said to have been a drunken sailor who committed suicide in one of the police cells at the town hall, too embarrassed by his indiscretion to face justice in the courtroom above.

Some sources say his surname is Nevin, which makes him sound rather English, but other sources say he was a Prussian visiting the port on a ship and so he spelled his name Oskar.

Wherever he’s from, we’d love to find out more about him – have you ever spotted him?