ANKARAGUCU

Greetings Kankas, and I think I'm almost over my catastrophic weekend !! Time to give a brief report on the ANKARAGUCU V Besiktas match last Saturday.

I suppose the cliche..... `it was a game of 2 halves` ..... would summarise this match. Ankaragucu came out of the starting-blocks like a train and it was a sight to behold to see Besiktas on the back-foot. After 7 minutes came the well deserved goal from our `Lone Ranger` Umut. Receiving a long ball (again !!!) on the right wing from defence, he turned 2 defenders and looking up with the intention of a cross ball, surprise surprise, there was nobody there, so he moved inside, beat another defender and sent in an unstoppable angled shot past a static Cordoba in goal. What a start, but could it continue ?! Yes, or so we thought, until the 16th minute when Besiktas broke out of defence at speed (how many times have we been caught out like this during the season ??!!) and once again the Ankaragucu defence were found wanting as Gokhan equalised. After that, it was the turn of Ankaragucu to go on the back-foot as Besiktas took control for the last 30 minutes of the half and then it happened again. I wanted to say, `shut up shop` but after my `faux pas` at the Galata....spit....saray match, I kept my mouth shut ! However, it made little difference this time as Ibrahim scored with the last kick of the half. The air was `blue` at half-time with lots of censored words coming from the mouth of Eski Kanka, and Oz Kanka, Marash Kanka and No Name Kanka doing their best to keep the olde bugger (Oz Kanka's description !!!) calm !!!

Into the 2nd half and `the train` was back on track ! Ankaragucu started as they had in the 1st half and almost immediately Ahmet equalised with a stunning goal. That put the smile back on Eski Kanka's face ! It was all Ankaragucu now, although Besiktas were still looking dangerous on the break, and then on about the 75th minute mark the winner almost came courtesay of a fast break down the right which saw Cordoba and Ahmet chasing the same ball. Ahmet reached it 1st and lobbed the keeper and we all lept up in expectation only to see the ball strike the crossbar and go over ! It was to be Ankaragucu's last chance. 10 minutes later the winning goal came from Tumer and `heads went into hands`. A travesty of justice perhaps, but as we all know, footie is cruel sometimes. The best team may well deserve victory but fate sometimes intervenes to lend a hand to the unworthy. However, the record books will show 3 points to Besiktas ! With Ankaragucu only 4 points above the 3rd bottom team, pressure is back on again in the run-in to our last 6 matches. All hands to the pumps for the next match away to high flying Kayseri.

Looking further ahead, I'm still not hitting the panic button yet. Ahmet Belal looks like solving the problem of a strike partner for Unut in the short term, but we really need to work on our consistency in mid-field and cut down on the number of speculative high balls out of defence.

Mr Optimistic is still hanging-in there !!! All the best from Eski Kanka Jim