A happy birthday all round as Gencler down Karabuk

What weird weather we had for Saturday afternoon's Gencler v Karabuk match. Before kick-off it was hot in the sun. Then the clouds came in and it was a bit chilly. Sun back out and coats off again. Then it ended with hail!

As we trudged into the wet Ankara night I was damn happy we got the three points as it had seemed for a long, long time that a draw was all we were going to get. In fact if the cards had fallen a different way Karabuk could well have won it.

Genclerbirligi 2 - 1 Karabukspor

The party boys.

No pre-match drinks for me as I had to drive Little Oz Kanka and his mates to the stadium. For the first time in years Mrs. Oz Kanka came along. Also in for the match was @spinesideburn, Matt, Simon and Oguz. Quite a little crowd we made.

But before we could become that little crowd we had to actually get into the stadium and it seems as if the tickets I had bought from the little kiosk were fakes. We ended up being given replacements but... annoying at the time.

We were inside with plenty of time to spare and were all handed black or red sheets of paper to hold up during the national anthemn as it was Genclerbirligi's 90th anniversary.

@Spinesideburn acting his age.

Handing out paper to a crowd is only going to result in one thing with little kids around and so it was that within moments @spinesideburn had already made a paper aeroplane.

The players came out not with a "Happy Birthday Us" sign but instead a "Happy World Consumer Rights Day" banner. Maybe that's why I was given replacement tickets instead of a brush off.    

No Jimmy or Hursut for the match. I think they are injured.

Finally we got going and it was looking nice and with nine minutes on the clock Zec sent in a cross aimed for the young Artun but a defender headed it outside the box to Petkovic who seemed to take forever before shooting into the low left corner.  

One-nil up and all was well. This had a big Gencler victory written all over it but, as often happens the away team picked up their tempo and we were too complacent.

Hope this looks good on the telly.

At times our defence was rubbish with a real reluctance to actually tackle. Karabuk had a number of shots, and Ramazan had to make a number of last ditch saves.

They managed to get an amazingly soft equaliser with five minutes to go before half-time. Somehow or other Serkan in the box allowed a ball to bounce over him and fall straight to a Karabuk attacker. How Serkan misjudged this I have no idea. Realising the mistake Ramazan was forced to come off his line but Luton Shelton calmly slotted it past him.

Grrr grrr grrr but it wasn't long after half-time when a Karabuk player was sent off for a second yellow card. I thought it was slightly harsh but the referee today was giving rubbish decisions left, right and centre.

The crowd were getting pretty frustrated with Gencler's
inability to finish it off.  

A man down, 40-odd minutes to go. Karabuk were surely dead meat. Nope they held on. Despite some great play from Gencler, we just couldn't find the net and at times were very close to conceding. I thought Zec had a great game and was very unlucky not to score.    

Then with the frustration levels in the crowd and on the field rising higher and higher, Zec sent in a perfect cross onto the head of Bjorn Vleminckx. Goal. Two minutes left.

Then the hail came down and for some reason Karabuk got a freekick on the edge deep into injury time. They missed and the referee blew it up. Phew!

Happy birthday Genclerbirligi. Happy birthday Little Oz Kanka.