ANKARAGUCU SEND GALATASARAY BACK TAE ISTANBUL TAE THINK AGAIN !!

Greetings Kankas and Kankies.

Apologies to the author of the Scottish National Anthem for 'borrowing' some of his words !

Well, as usual, Galatasaray came swaggering into Ankara yesterday expecting a wlecome and another 'bent' referee, but they were sadly disappointed on both counts and had to slink out of Ankara suitably chastised and humbled !

ANKARAGUCU 3 Galatasaray 0

What a memorable day for us Ankaragucu Kankas after such a poor start to the season on the field and chaotic season off the field.

We met up in The Chopin - Battle Damaged Kanka Damon, Connect Kanka Steve, Phillie Kanka Jamie, and 16 of the 'baby' Yank teachers from Bilkent. I forgot to ask if any of them were Confederates !

Too many to give details, but first names will suffice for now - Christa, Aisha, Kate, Kath, Natalie, Emily, Emma, Tim, James, Glyn, Paul, Joe, Andy, Zach, Charlie and Steve.

All photos and captions are the work of Zach Rosenfeld, one of the new Bilkent kankas. He took a whole heap more photos which can be seen on his Flickr page.

From the left: Jamie, Steve, Random Turk #1, Random Turk #2, Tim, Charlie, and Krista. Charlie and Krista are CSIs, and the other three are English teachers at the high school.

Random Turkish guys LOVE to get their pictures taken with Americans — even if (or perhaps especially if) they'll never even see the finished product. Whenever you take out a camera, you put yourself at risk of being approached by a random Turkish guy who wants to be in your photo album.

Unfortunately we had to sparate due to a logistics problem with the tickets. The Yanks ended up in Gecikondu where they received a tremendous welcome from the Gecikondu Boys. I will leave Connect and Philly Kankas to expand on that in the comments section.

Battle Damaged and I met up with Yankee Kanka and Huso Kanka in our usual position in Maraton near the Anti-X Boys.

Like I said, Turkish people want to be in your photo album! These guys saw me snap a picture of the simit hat guy, and asked me to take one of them.

That boy later gave his scarf to Christa, which was very sweet of him. (She refused at first, but he would have none of it). She gave him an appreciative peck on the cheek, to which all the other guys hooted and whistled. It was pretty cute.

The 3 Ankaragucu strikers were absent again. Vassell is continuing to have contractual problems, and if they are not resolved soon, he could very well be on his way back to England. Surprise surprise ........ it's financial !! Iglesias is injured and Bebbe is still on suspension after his aberration in Antalya 3 weeks ago.

So, it was a similar starting line-up to last week's in Antep, ie,

Serkan
El-Yasa, Ediz, Risp, Broggi
Semavi, Barbaros, Hurriyet, Murat Duruer
Ceyhun and Metin

2nd Half substitutes used were - Mehmet Cakir, Emre and Volkan

The Stadium was almost full and the small band of Galatasaray supporters in the 'away end' were being out-sung and drowned-out by the volume generated by the Ankaragucu tribunes.

The first half of the match was fairly even and I was thinking that if there was no scoring at half time then Ankaragucu would probably step-up their attacking options in the 2nd half. So it proved !

In the first half there were a few close things at both ends with Serkan pulling off a few of his 'agile' saves and at the the other end Ceyhun and Metin combined well to open up the Galatasaray defence only for Metin to blast the ball over.

Into the 2nd half then and Ankaragucu started to open up and attack more. However, Semavi was having a shocker of a match - it just wasn't his day. Seemingly everything he tried didn't work, and it was compounded half way through the half when Ceyhun had carved open the Galatasaray defence (not for the first time in the match) and put him through with only Franco in goal to beat. OK, he didn't do a Metin and send it skywards, but the ball hit the bar when it looked easier to score.

Amazingly, Hikmet Bey didn't substitute him but took Metin off instead !

Ceyhun also had a goal bound screamer of a free kick brilliantly saved by Franco.

Into the last 15 minutes of the match and Ankaragucu was upping the pressure. Again it was Man of the Match, Ceyhun, who did the damage. He put Murat Duruer through and he cleverly sidestepped a frantic tackle before slotting the ball past a helpless Franco with the other defenders arriving too late. A well crafted and well taken goal.

Scenes of jubilation and let's up the volume of the singing.

Galatasaray was in panic mode now and threw most of their players forward in search of the equaliser. However, this only served to leave space for Ankaragucu counter attacks and it was from one of those that Emre slotted in No2 only 2 minutes after coming on to replace Ceyhun.

Volume up yet another level, lots of 'high fives' amongst us and we are all shouting ..... uc uc uc (meaning three three three !!!).

Almost full time now and unbelievably the 3rd goal came. Galatasaray was in total disarray now and it was Hurriyet who did the biz.

Volume further up and the chant went up ...... bes bes bes (meaning five five five !!!!!). We were all on our feet now jumping up and down and singing like I haven't seen for many a year.

I would still love to know how long it has been since we beat Galatasaray by 3 clear goals (if ever) ??!!

Well done team and a rare word of praise from me for Murat Duruer who had an excellent all round performance in addition to scoring the vital opening goal.

Also, well done to the Referee, Koray Gencerler, who had an excellent match and stood no nonsense from BOTH teams. It is not often we have a referee who didn't favour the Istanbul team !!!

Holy crap! Look at all those riot police! Clearly they're used to dealing with potential mobs at every game.

Thanks to Oz Kanka for posting a link to the goals of the match and the after match fighting which we didn't see due to the fact that we left after the final whistle and before the lap of honour. No doubt there will be some comments tomorrow on this disgraceful behaviour. It is to be hoped we are not going to suffer another Stadium closure as a punishment if Ankaragucu supporters were to blame ?!

Most of us ended up back in The Chopin Bar to watch the Fener v Gencler match with Oz Kanka but it was not to be a clean sweep for Ankara as you will have seen in his report.

So, what can I say that hasn't been said about the Ankaragucu performance ? Super, Fantastic, Marvellous ?? Yes, all of them. However, can we maintain this standard is my question ?

We have to wait until weekend 17/18 October away to Kayseri for the answer to that question.

All the best from an upbeat Eski Kanka Jim

3-nil! Galatasaray got their butts handed to them.

And then there is a comment by someone who is probably more used to gridion scores:
Comments

emily.shinay says:
You know it's a good game when the scores are really low ... that's what Dad always says.

The kid on the right was about to hop the fence and run up to the team. He got one of the player's jerseys for his efforts.