Waiting for another week

No match report to give on Genclerbirligi's 2-0 win over Diyarbakirspor and so instead you will be given a maths lesson. The Turkish papers on Sunday failed to give anything but the score so I'm sure you will forgive me.

First up, the result means that Diyarbakirspor are going down. I know that one or two people who have contributed to the blog don't like Diyarbakirspor for their assumed connections to the PKK. I have no such thoughts.

Diyarbakirspor was supported by the state for a number of years with the idea being that the youth of the city might take out their frustrations at the footy and not on the streets.

A few years ago there were allegations that refs had been bribed to allow Diyabakirspor to get into the top flight. The team was, and this is past tense, supported 100 per cent by the local police force and the military. When they made it to the top flight they didn't actually have a single Kurd on the team, hardly Athletic Club Bilbao.

Anyway, as usual the Turkish state buggered up and didn't realise that a whole heap of football fans, especially those from Konya, would abuse the Diyarbakirspor team for being PKK, even if, as I said before, none of their players were Kurdish.

It didn't take long for the Kurds of Diyarbakir to understand this and so, naturally, they retaliated with pro-PKK stuff. It all came to a head a month or so ago when Diyarbakir fans went wild at a home match against Konyaspor.

Diyarbakir were given a six-match ban on spectators, the last of which was Saturday night against Genclerbirligi, which, as I said before we won 2-0.

So, calculations time for the UEFA Cup spot.

Trabzon: 52
Kayseri: 51
Gencler: 51

One match left. We have Trabzon-Besiktas, Galatasaray-Kayseri and Genclerbirligi-Rize.

All to play for. The only way for us to get into the UEFA Cup is for Trabzon to lose (or draw) and us to win. I'll be praying for Besiktas next week.

I'm not sure what happens if we end up on equal points but I'm sure the Turkish papers will say something about it in the next few days, well possibly.