Another season gone

The end of another season of high hopes dashed. Am I the only person who has a sense of loss with no football on this weekend? And so with no match to look forward to (at least not until June 9) I guess it is time for some thoughts on the season.

As is befitting the tone of the blog in the last few weeks I'll start off with my dissapointments. First of all it has to be the last match of the season. To get so close to UEFA, all we needed was a draw, but no, we blew it.

The season started crap as well. Our coach at the time decided he didn't like Australian midfielder Josip Skoko and so the club gave him away for free to Wigan in order to free up a space in the foreigners quota. A week later, we sacked the coach and ever since we have been looking for a good midfielder. Skoko was last seen kicking a ball around for Stoke City, but at least he is off to the World Cup next month.

Unlike Turkey who buggered up their qualification group (coming in second) and then even more stupidly stuffed up against Switzerland. Then we had the handbags at fulltime that resulted in Turkey having to play its next six home matches at neutral venues without spectators. Those six matches are the entire qualification process for the European Championships.

But there were some highlights this year.

I particularly enjoyed Genclerbirligi's home win over Galatasaray early in the season (not long before we started this blog). Ole Kanka's old man was over here from Australia and considering he could only get to one match this was one hell of a good one to get to. Although he was dissapointed there was no half-time entertainment, he regaled us with tales of the busty ladies who do the cheerleading at matches for the Canberra Rugby League team, it was great to take someone along to a match that had both good football and a good result.

There were some good wins throughout the season but compared to recent years Genclerbirligi didn't really seem to sparkle. We need a good midfielder and a good forward.

My other big highlight for the season was watching Australia versus Uruguay in the second leg play-off in Sydney. It was about 10 in the morning when the match started up but that certainly didn't stop an Aussie mate and myself from opening the first beer of the day (a work day too). In the end we got through on penalties and I immediately put my application in for tickets. Of course, with most tickets going to corporate sponsors (thanks Fifa for looking after the true supporters of the game) I missed out.

My other highlight has to be starting up this blog with Sir Eski Kanka. Through it I have been able to take out all my frustrations and thus it has acted as a very good psychiatrist. Best of all though it has allowed us to meet up with other Gencler and Ankaragucu fans.

Enough of my therapy session. I guess we might not post so much in the next few weeks, perhaps the odd update on transfer news, but I'm sure myself and Sir Eski Kanka will be back ranting and raving once the World Cup starts up.