I could wring that referee's neck!

In the taxi after the match @spinesideburn said that he didn't think the referee had too bad of a match. WTF! Were you watching the same match! Let's just go through the 44 seconds before the Sivas goal.

* A very clear handball by a Sivas player. Ref doesn't see it (and neither do the two blokes on the sideline) but the ball goes through to ...

* ... Hursut on the right goes into the box and is brought down. The defender was nowhere near the ball. Ref calls play on and the cleared ball goes to...

* ... A clearly off-side player for Sivas who (admittedly the defending was bad) slots it home. Sivas go one up.

That was absolute rubbish referee Huseyin Gocek. I'm not going to make any accusations of the referee being paid off or anything like that. I just think the bloke is a joke and should not be anywhere near a top flight football game.

Genclerbirligi 1 - 1 Sivasspor 

It was a "Super Saturday of Sport" for a few of us in Ankara on ....er ... Saturday.

I'm not going to go into a blow-by-blow account of the morning viciousness except to say that players from four of the six teams that played in the Under 8s competition at the Balgat base were in attendance at the Gencler match in the evening.

Ankara people! The message from this is clear. If foreign kiddies are prepared to support their local team... then so should you, you lazy bastards.

Little Oz Kanka did ask me though to point out that while his team did lose in the semi-final, he was "that" close to scoring in the last second, with the ball hitting the post. Tears were fought back, emotions were high, friendships on the line, but in the end I recovered, Matthew laughed at me and was then rewarded with a lovely little trophy and some cardboard disguising itself as American pizza.

Showers and whatnot and then off to the Red Lion Club for the rugby.

England smashed Fiji last week. France smashed Australia. Australia beat England on Saturday. The world is now back to normal.

Quick dash in Simon's car and off to the stadium. The crew this week included the delusional @spinesideburn , everybody's favourite Erasmus student @PritchDan , er... Simon who was good enough to not drink so much so as to drive us to the stadium and his son Tom, and Tom's classmate Little Oz Kanka Matthew. Got there just in time to take a piss as the national anthem was being played. Sorted.

At some stage I might get to describing some of the football. Not sure though and you may have to do with the opening couple of sentences.

But what the hell did we find in the stands? Nikolai, our favourite Danish person of the moment (please forgive me Nordic Kanka if you are still reading this blog years after having left), was there with at least three small blond children. Well done sir.

Thing was though, it was a little bit nippy and so some people brought a beanie or a pair of gloves. Nikolai doesn't take any chances though. He brought an entire sofa-size Ikea plastic bag with enough clothing for him and the kids just in case a severe snow storm was going to hit the 19 Mayis Stadium between 7pm and 9pm on Saturday night. The storm never came though and we all survived.

Nikolai (left) and unidentified Nordic child
sit in front of IKEA bag full of heaps of shit.

Football.. Oh yes, did I mention that your good correspondent and his son were on the telly this week. It was a Lig TV show and they came to our place to interview us asking questions such as 'Are you bloody mad?'

As soon as I got out of the car a bloke actually asked me if I was the famous one from the Lig Tv show! I'm going to start charging appearance money.

If you are really curious you can watch the show on the Lig Tv website. 


Young Tom was also in the show and I heard this evening that this particular 8-year-old has now decided to ditch Besiktas and to instead support Genclerbirligi. RESULT!!!!!

There was football as well on Saturday night!

Easy way to understand the first half.

1. Laugh at referee and linesmen.

2. Watch plenty of attacks from Genclerbirligi and then see them...

3. ... stuff them up.

4. Read first few lines from this report.

5. Shout and swear, BLOODY LOUDLY.

6. Replay 1, 2, 3 and 5.

7. Take a half time piss as Gencler go in 0-1 down.

Second half and we just had shot after shot after shot. Just damn unlucky none of them went in.

Except of course for what was the stupidest blunder of the match.

An open letter to Saturday's referee:

Hocam Mr. Referee Huseyin Gocek,
By God you are rubbish. Thanks for the penalty by the way.
Yours,
The football loving public   

Jimmy had come on at some stage and wasn't playing too badly but it wasn't exactly cricket when he went down in the box. We all shouted abuse at him for being a fool and then Hocam Mr. Referee Huseyin Gocek blew the whistle for a penalty. FOR US!

We couldn't believe it. There was no way in the world that was a penalty. But it was for us. So in celebration we all started up the chant that the `referee is an amateur`. Hursut scored it and we just laughed. Top class idiot in charge tonight.

And so the match went on until finally the ref blew it up. 1-1. Not the best for Gencler but it could have been worse. It could have been a whole lot better as well.

Coming up soon on `The round ball in Ankara` some actual discussion of football. Well, maybe...