Landmine victims dazzle Ginola

Ginola lines up with the amputee players

A team of Cambodian landmine victims have displayed their skills in a friendly football match with French soccer star and Red Cross anti-landmines campaigner David Ginola.

"It's amazing to see them smiling and having such a great time. We really had a great match," Ginola said after the seven-a-side match in Kompong Speu, a small town south of the capital Phnom Penh.

Ginola replaced the late Diana, Princess of Wales, as flag bearer for the international campaign against landmines.

Some of these players could come over and play in England

David Ginola

He is on a five day trip to Cambodia - where million sof landmines remain buried after civil war - and will visit a mine clearance project.

In 1998 he toured Angola, also under the Red Cross banner.

The Tottenham Hotspur winger played the first half for one team, and then switched sides at half-time.

Preferring to pass to his teammates, he did not score a goal in the game, which ended 4-2.

Fast pace

Ginola was said to be impressed by the fast pace of the amputee's game - played near a Red Cross artificial limb clinic.

Ginola: Impressed by the game's pace

"Some of these players could come over and play in England," he said after a line-up with his all-amputee fellow footballers.

Ginola has described the campaign as among his main passions off the football field.

Along with Afghanistan and Angola, Cambodia is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.

There are an estimated 10 million devices still littering the countryside following decades of civil war.

About 40,000 of Cambodia's 11.4 million people have lost limbs to mines and unexploded ordnance.

Seven years of surveying and clearance have seen casualty rates plummet.

But about 1,000 civilians are still killed or maimed each year.