When will this nightmare stop?

Snowing in Ankara and fears that the taxis wouldn't be able to get up the hill from the Knight and Flight bar back to the Occupied Territories, otherwise known as Gaziosmanpasa, meant I had to watch the match at home. No worries though as I had Little Oz Kanka as company who sat with me through the whole first half of Fenerbahce versus Genclerbirligi.

I can now understand what all those "do it yourself bringing up babies" books are all about. These kiddies do mimic their parents. Every "C'mon Gencler" from me brought out a "c'mon Gencler" from Matthew. When I laughed at Fener mistakes so did he. Unfortunately he also repeated what I said when Fener scored... mmmm. On to the match itself

Fenerbahce 2 - Genclerbirligi 1

I have to admit I'm getting sick of playing Fenerbahce. We lost to them 2-1 on Tuesday in a Cup match and by the same amount tonight. Not sure when but we will have another match against them soon for the return leg of the Cup quarterfinal.

As usual we started well and definately had the best chances of the first few minutes, one especially good shot from Erhan (whose last name escapes me and when I can't check it out on the Genclerbirligi website because Chairman Ilhan Cavcav seems to have pulled the plug on it) from about 30 metres out hit the top bar. But again as usual we went behind in the ninth. Some bad defending but it was a good header from Tuncay.

Didn't have to wait too long though for the deserved equaliser. Mehmet Cakir sent it in. A defender headed it out. Mehmet Nas from miles out absolutely belted the thing and bang... goal to Genclerbirligi.

I was jumping up and down as was Matthew (age almost 3 by the way) and quite frankly I was feeling slightly confident. Stupid me.

Despite Fener fielding a full strength side, unlike on Tuesday when they rested a whole heap of people, I thought that despite a few flashes of brilliance they weren't playing that well. On the other hand Genclerbirligi seemed to be doing quite well, that's if you don't count Isaac Promise who yet again looked like a bunny caught in the headlights.

First half over and Matthew decided he had better go to bed (actually it was Mrs. Oz Kanka who decided that). Perhaps I should have done the same.

Not sure what was in the orange juice our players were drinking at half-time but it clearly wasn't cocaine as we came out very slow. They weren't that slow but still, we had few chances on goal.

Then Fener put the knife in with a goal to Aurelio. No real excuses here. Fener passed the ball well in and around the box and I have to admit it was a nice goal.

More buggering around for a while and then something very strange.

It was the 74th minute play was going along and then the referee for no apparent reason pulled out a straight red card for Kezman. The television gurus at Lig TV couldn't even find the incident. In other words I don't have a clue what happened. Kezman didn't complain much though and considering he is a Fenerbahce player this is tantamount to admitting to mass murder.

Didn't really help Gencler though. We had a few attacks on goal but nothing much of substance.

Another loss... Let me call on Gencler coach Mesut Bakkal yet again... "Please drop Isaac Promise".

EDIT: Saturday. Seems as if Kezman got sent off for saying "fuck you" to an opponent. According to the Anatolia news agency he has accepted that he said it but claims in his defence that everyone says it in England.