Ye Beihua

Ye Beihua moved to Hong Kong at a young age and joined the South China Athletic Association in 1924. In 1926 he was promoted to the First Division team after many players left the club. Four years later he moved to the Guangzhou Police on the China mainland, opposite Hong Kong, improving the local football club. On the weekend he continued to play for the SCAA, which dominated Hong Kong’s football for the next decade. Internationally he played for China at the 1930 Far Eastern Games, but a severe injury forced him to skip the 1933-34 season. Even though he never regained his peak performance after his comeback, he still remained the top national left winger, playing at the 1934 Far Eastern Games as well as the 1936 Olympic Games. Ye was a typical left winger of small stature, but with extraordinary technical abilities.

After the outbreak of the war, like other SCAA players, Ye attended the Guangdong Aviation School but continued to play many charity matches. After 1949 he started coaching the South Military team and the Wuhan Institute of Physical Education teams. In 1957 he returned to Guangzhou and trained youth teams, bringing up a new generation of local football stars. In 1959 he was transferred to the North China Institute of Technology (now Guangdong University), from which he retired in 1973. He died suddenly when watching the victory of the local team in the National Games on TV.