The weeklong deadly episode of the long-running Lyari gang warfare claimed over a dozen lives, but on Thursday Sulaiman, like his neighbours, was ready to become part of the month-long festivities that kicked off in the area with the opening of the football world cup by the Rainbow Nation.

As Mexico take on host South Africa in Johannesburg on Friday in the 19th Fifa World Cup opener, the 47-year-old, who is as passionate about football as any other Lyariite, has forgotten about the violence that has plagued his Eidu Lane and Ali Mohammad Mohalla.

From the June 11 kick-off to July 11 — when two teams will take part in the final contest of the world's most-watched sporting event — Sulaiman hopes to be part of the football fever that is ordinarily in evidence in the narrow lanes of Lyari, especially on the green outfield of the People's Stadium.

“The walls of my apartment building are still pock-marked with bullet holes left in the wake of the weeklong gunfight,” he says.

“You see, Lyari is extremely resilient. Loss of lives is certainly unfortunate. But those who are alive insist on having their right to normal lives. And football for them is a way of life.”

Lyari may lately have been ravaged by gang warfare, but every four years the football world cup reignites the passion of the town — which still has 116 registered soccer clubs — for football.

It was once home to all the national team members that beat Turkey and Iran in the 1966 world cup qualifying matches.

Ali Nawaz Baloch, the former captain of the Pakistan national team who rose to fame from the streets of Lyari, believes poverty, lack of political will and growing negligence by the administration have turned the town of football lovers into a stronghold of armed gangs.

“It's a town of the poor who have barely a few things to be cheerful about. Football is one of them. Indeed, it tops the list,” says Mr Baloch, who was honoured with the President's Pride of Performance Award in 1995 for his services to the national football team in the 1970s.

“The standard of football played by us started to deteriorate after the fall of Dhaka in 1971. Things have not looked up since then, both for football and for the town.”

He feels certain that the densely populated locality by the port is full of youths brimming with talent for football, but “unfortunately their skills have been given a wrong direction”.

Most Lyariites blame successive governments that ignored their promising locality and “influential individuals” who patronised criminals for the sorry state of affairs in the town.

Legislators from the strife-torn constituency agree with the assessment but only up to a point, insisting that frequent disruptions in democratic rule was actually the main cause of the crisis.“It's not only football; you can also find national boxing and cycling champions in my town,” says Sardar Nabeel Ahmed Gabol, a state minister and member of the national assembly elected from the area on the platform of the Pakistan People's Party that has traditionally enjoyed the political loyalty of the Lyariites.

“Even till early 2000, the situation was not as bad as it is now. Lyari is the most politically conscious and prosperous town of Karachi. Naturally it remained a constant source of worry to dictators and their allies. Little wonder, then, that they did their utmost to wreck the locality's peace.”

It is hard to understand why despite this realisation the authorities are making no effort to restore peace to what used to be a sporting paradise in Karachi.

“Priorities define goals,” says Mohammad Sulaiman of Eidu Lane.

“But in the case of Lyari, we haven't seen peace as a priority for successive governments. Nor was the revival of football in the town ever on their agenda. So we are left with few options. It is best that we enjoy every moment of this world cup without worrying about the future.”