C'MON ANKARAGUCU .... GIVVUZZZ A GOAL .... LUTFEN !

Greetings Kankas and Kankies.

A feeling of deja vu for lonely Eski Kanka (the Lone Ranger) as he braved a very cold (but snowless) afternoon yesterday to withness another goal-less match by Ankaragucu. Where are all the lazy kankas ?!!! Thank God I'm known in Maraton and a few people came and talked to me - obviously feeling sorry for me !

Ankaragucu 0 Samsunspor 3

Team -

Bayram
Mehmet, Gurkan, Umit and Ishak
Kaan, Mert, Bilal and Veli
Atilla and Serol

Substitutes - Serkan, Sinan and Oguzhan

(Some new names there to conjour with !!)

I took a nostalgic stroll through Genclik Park on my way to the Stadium and saluted the site where our old meeting place once stood - The Sahil. Great memories of a byegone age when Ankaragucu used to score goals and win !!

On arrival, Gecikondu was in full song, but were well matched by a full away end with a noisy Samsunspor Tribune. There was another one of those 'love-ins' with the Samsun boyz singing Ankaragucu songs ...... awwwwww !! Certainly beats throwing missiles, fists and bad mouthing ! Also, both teams saluted both tribunes before the match got underway. Good to see. However, the leaves are falling off the tree in Maraton and elsewhere !

So to the action ans it was Samsun dictating the play with Ankaragucu doing their best to settle into some kind of rhythm. Samsun was certainly not playing like a team propping up the League alongside Ankaragucu !

Then came the goals in quick succession to kill off any hopes of an unlikely Ankaragucu victory.

10 minutes in and the impressive Bance had his shot blocked by Bayram. The ball rebounded off Bayram back to Bance and from a tight angle on the right, he found the top left corner. On reflection, he really shouldn't have had a second bite of the cherry !

7 minutes later Samsun was awarded a free kick just outside the box. The shot was goalbound but Bayram pulled off a magnificent safe to deny a certain 2nd goal. However, just 1 minute later from a subsequent attack down the left, the equally impressive Ekigho let fly with and unstoppable shot which flew in for No 2 with Bayram helpless on this occasion.

Then on the 25th minute mark the match was more or less killed off. The Ankaragucu defence was pulled to pieces this way and that with some woeful defending. Samsun put together some crisp inter-passing for goal of the match to set up Ekigho for the 3rd goal. Certainly a goal for the footie purists and one which coaches will no doubt replay time and again to their teams to show how it should be done. That said, I doubt if there will many defences as obliging as Ankaragucu's !!

Not much more to say really. It was still 0-3 at the end of the match and Samsun didn't so much take their foot off the pedal in the 2nd half as Ankaragucu stepped up the pressure, but there was only one moment in the match when the breakthough almost came. Around the 50th minute, Ishak had a great goalbound shot which produced a tremedous flying save from Ertugrul to tip over for a corner.

There were a few other shots on goal from Ankaragucu but they were either skied over or well saved by Ertugrul. However, apart from the one great save from Ertugrul he was never really troubled and there was no way that I was on tender-hooks waiting for that elusive Ankaragucu goal !

Yet another mountain to climb next week away to in form Karabukspor. Looks like a 1pm KO on Saturday but I'll confirm that later in the comments section.

All the best from Eski Kanka Jim