Genclerbirligi wins, Democracy wins

Genclerbirligi have won the World's Longest Title Cup! It wasn't the prettiest of matches but we scored two cracker goals and are now the inaugural winners of the "Turkish Sportswriters' Association Ankara Branch 15 July Democracy Cup" or as Peter Stout named it yesterday, the "Coup Cup" .

Genclerbirligi 2 - 1 Konyaspor

Video taken by Little Oz Kanka

Genclerbirligi tweeted yesterday that they had 1,000 free tickets to hand out to today's match, so Little Oz Kanka and myself went off to the club headquarters this morning and blagged six. In the end we gave away the extra ones at the gate. The Gencler ticket guy also gave us a free Anadolu Agency photograpic book of the 15 July attempted coup. This wasn't to do with the fact that we were playing in the Coup Cup, merely because I was browsing through it. Very kind of him.

Another stinking hot August day when little Oz Kanka and me headed off to walk down to the Alerta, met Spine on the way and enjoyed some beers, some food and watched Jak Ali Harvey of Turkey qualify for the semi-final of the 100 metres running event.

Spine wussed out at this point so it was just father and son who jumped into the metro and headed to the stadium.

Oz Kanka and Spine. Oz Kanka is wearing Harun.

Then it started raining and raining and raining and raining and then a bit of wind. It was all rather pleasent of course after such a scorcher but it kept on raining and then it started getting cold and all of us in shorts and t-shirts started to shiver. Little Oz Kanka wanted to go home at half-time. The last time he asked that he was only three-and-a-half years old.

The rain probably buggered up some of the quality of play. There weren't too many goal opportunities for either team and no real stand out players.

That was until Selcuk Sahin had a shot from some 30 yards out. It was a belter hit the crossbar and in. What a great shot. Besides that though the first half wasn't the best advertisement for the game.

Hooray, the rain has stopped.

Things got a bit better in the second half. We had a few chances but blew them. Hopf saved a few easy ones but wasn't really tested. It all seemed as if we would win one-nil when everything buggered up and Konya got one back with two minutes left on the clock.

It was surely going to go to penalties but then another wonderful goal from a set piece. Aydin Karabulut, who had come on at half-time and had a decent game, was fouled with a cynical from behind tackle. Thirty yards out and Irfan takes a wonderful shot, curves in and hits the goal post and in. The Konyaspor keeper didn't even move. Time on the clock: 90 minutes.

Referee blows it up and the Coup Cup stays in Ankara.

Konya were definitely better than Adanaspor but Genclerbirligi have a long way to go to find the flair that we saw in the second half of last season.

Bu da Kahveci'nin golu. pic.twitter.com/MEuvQ95oOo

— Mr. Shelby (@dettayna) August 13, 2016