Better than we expected

Genclerbirligi 0 - 0 Kayseri

Wonderful summer's evening and the Chopin was the place to be. Flying Dutchman Kanka was first at the Chopin, then me. French Kanka Hande and Spine were next to rock up - Spine limping slightly thanks to two almighty welts on his inner thigh sustained during cricket practice - and finally Ambo Kanka Peter and his good son Patrick joined in.

As Sir Eski Kanka mentioned in his Ankaragucu match report the Chopin wasn't showing any Turkish football. As he said the bars in the street had decided to boycott Digiturk in protest at price hikes. I'm not sure if Sir Eski had noticed but there was one bar on the street that had decided to scab on the agreement and was actually showing the Galatasaray match that kicked off at 7:30 pm. Needless to say, that bar was packed to the rafters... so much for solidarity.

Don't worry too much though, we won't have to cross any picket lines soon as the manager of the Chopin said they will have the football back on in a couple of weeks.

The talk at the bar was mainly about how we had done virtually nothing in the transfer market and most of us, without having seen a single minute of football were pretty depressed.

So, off to the match and it was a pretty decent crowd for Gencler. Not only that, but the new legislation that has private security guards check us at the door instead of the police, means that a) you can probably get in with your lighters and coins; and, more importantly b) they don't try to smell your breath and therefore kick you out if you've had a beer in the last 48 hours.

Dan the Man was in the stands and peep peep peep we were off.

Kayseri started fairly well but it wasn't long until we started to apply pressure. I don't think Kayseri had a shot on goal all match. We didn't have many either but we were by far the better attacking team. We were pressing well and unlike last season we weren't slowing things down when we had the ball in midfield.

I thought Kahe played well - although Spine disagreed with me completely on this point - but the star for the match, if you can have a star in a 0-0 draw was Burhan. Ertank mentioned after the match that Burhan (a Kurd from Diyarbakir) may have been inspired by the latest efforts by the Turkish state to solve the Kurdish problem. I think he may have been joking.

Anyway, our best chance in the first half came very early on when Momha sent a corner in which the Kayseri keeper failed to keep a hold of. I think it was Kahe who got onto it but in the end a Kayseri defender cleared from not far off his line. It should have been a goal.

There were a quite a few good attacks in both halves but in the end nothing happened.

Some notes:

1) James Troisi, the Australian midfielder who concluded a secret transfer from Gencler to Kayseri during the off season. (the first thing that Gencler knew of the transfer was when they found 1 million dollars had been put into their bank account) was booed every time he got the ball. Not only that but he was fouled quite a lot. My guess is that the Cavcav had told the Gencler players to go for him.

2) The referee was either a) incompetent, or b) a wanker.

3) As we walked into the match the private security guards were telling everyone that smoking is not allowed inside the stadium. As far as I could see nobody smoked in the stands but at half-time I went down to the toilets and encountered a scene of mass civil disobedience. In the toilet itself the smoke was thicker than in any bar I've been in and outside people were openly refusing to obey police instructions to stop smoking. Being the radical revolutionary that I am, I lit up a fag myself.

4) After 25 minutes play in both the first and second halves, the referee blew his whistle and all the players jogged off for a cigarette break, er... sorry... drinks break. What the hell was the point? Ankara was pretty cool this evening. There was absolutely no need for a drinks break in either half. What was especially galling for Spine and myself was the fact that we had been out playing cricket for hours today, in the sun, and did we get a drinks break? No sirree.

Next week we are away to Gokcekspor. Genclerbirligi, please wipe the smile off that evil man's face.