Saturday, November 05, 2011

ANKARAGUCU ...... NEVER SAY DIE !

Greetings Kankas and Kankies.

Ankaragucu snatched a point from the jaws of defeat last night in Samsun, when to all intents and purposes, they should have been dead and buried. Another two schoolboy errors in defence put Ankaragucu on the back foot, but to their credit they never let their heads fall. We will need to see more of this before the end of the season !

Samsun 2 Ankaragucu 2

Five of us turned-up at the Red Lion Club to watch the match. Flying Dutchman Kanka Carlo, Cider Kanka John and his friend Alex from Frankfurt-in-Main and my friend Onur (whisper it quietly ..... he supports Fener !).

Team -

Ozden
Kagan, Ediz, Aydin and Ozgur
Weeks, Hurriyet and Guven
Serdar and Turgut
Tonia

Substitutes used - Atilla, Umut and Murat

Carlo was just paying for his beer and getting ready to settle down to watch match but he missed the first goal which arrived with only seconds on the clock. In the first attack of the match, the ball was put through to Zenke, but Aydin was covering the move and was about to tackle him when he stumbled and fell. Zenke was then clean through and fired in a shot which Ozden managged to get an arm to, but in it went to stun us all.

Play swung from end to end and then in the 14th minute Ankaragucu should have equalised, when from a great cross ball from Tonia, Turgut contrived to miss an open goal when all the ball needed was a touch. Again, 5 minutes later, Serdar was put through with only Ahmet in goal to beat, but instead of having a go, he passed the ball to the unmarked Tonia on the right but his feeble effort went past the post.

Then just before the half time whistle the killer blow was struck. Ahmet rolled the ball out to a defender and he carried the ball unchallenged to the halfway line, looked up, saw a gaping hole in the Ankaragucu defence, and threaded a great pass through about 5 defenders to the unmarked Murat who latched on to the ball, brought it forward, and lashed in a powerful shot with Ozden well beaten.

With Samsun sensing blood and Ankaragucu wobbling, the half time whistle arrived as a relief !

Ankaragucu came out for the 2nd half with the bit between their teeth and pressed forward relentlessly for a breakthrough. They were playing some neat footie in the Three Quarters area of the field, but with only Tonia up front, the attacks kept breaking down. Tonia (my Man of the Match) was everywhere and it was his inspiration and non-stop running which probably turned the match. He almost made the breakthrough on the 60 minute mark when he fired in a goal-bound shot but Ahmet saved well.

With 15 minutes to go, I decided to go outside for a siggy, more in frustration than anything else, and that's when the match was turned on its head. I saw the goal through the window and what a great goal it was. Captain Hurriyet latched on to a pass just outside the penalty area and sent a great shot into the top right hand corner with Ahmet helpless.

Oh well, I thought, that's it. We had a small crumb of comfort for all our endeavours. Then, just as I was about to extinguish my siggy the equaliser arrived.

Atilla received the ball just inside the penalty box, and with 2 defenders bearing down on him, he swivelled, wrong footing them, and sent a peach of a shot into the bottom right hand corner with Ahmet again helpless.

Jumping up and down with joy, high fives, and singing ...... Aaakaaarrraaaagooojoooo. I was back in the Club, but ............. maybe I should have stayed outside ??!!

True enough, it's only one point, but is could so easily have been zero points.

I have to say ....... if only. If only what you might ask ? With this fighting spirit ........ if only we had 2 strikers up front, what a difference it would have made to our season. The fact is .... we don't .... so it's still going to be an uphill struggle, however, all credit to the team for their efforts last night.

If the team show the same fighting qualities in 2 weeks time at home to Karabuk (Saturday 19 November) then we might be celebrating a first win of the season. Never say never, and, never say die !!

All the best from Eski Kanka Jim

5 comments:

  1. This match had me in anger for half the game , then proud for the second half. The first 25 Minutes of the game was dominated by Samsun, but the rest of the game it was all us and in truth we deserved the win.

    Brings me back to the manager again, he cant do anything about the sitters missed by Tonia and Turgut, but the School boy defending again has cost us 3 points. Still no improvement in the defence with the same mistakes every week, if there is no improvement then why even have a manager ?

    On the positive note, there were some good performances, my man of the match was Serdar Ozkan and when taken off i was a bit confused, but fair play to Ziya, his changes won us a point.

    We need to start the next game with Atilla starting with tonia and serdar out wide. Hopefully we can pick up a few wins and stay in the fight up till january where we can bring players in

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  2. Anonymous10:33 pm

    Jim you should have had a cigar when you went outside.A big one.Ankaragucu might have won!

    Dublin Neil.

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  3. Erdal Sanli who is one of the candidates for the elections this month, today said if he is chosen he will bring in Sven Goran Eriksson as manager.

    Speaking to Harun about Erdal and he says he was one of Cemal Aydins men. Looks like he is trying to win votes with statements like this.

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  4. Anonymous4:36 pm

    Excuse me if I don't get excited about the possibility of Eriksson coming here. He's a 'cold fish' and not my idea of a coach.

    I want a 'tracksuit' coach with fire in his belly and the ability to motivate players.

    This is especially important when you have a group of players like the present Ankaragucu squad who lack the necessary skill to compete with the 'big boys'.

    Can you imagine Eriksson sitting in the Protokol with the VIPs and shouting ..... 'come along chaps, let's have a tad more effort please' !!??

    Eriksson ? Arrrrrgh !!! Better to have Ziya Bey prowling along the touchline using stronger language me says !!

    All the best from Eski Kanka Jim

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  5. i agree Jim, although he is a big name coach, he has done nothing in recent years. We need an other Mesut Bakkal to help the team.

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