It was fun for three minutes

"You're not alone," the banner displayed by the two
Gencler fans who made it to Rize.

"Besides Ahmet Calik it seems like we have put out our development team," a text message on the Alkaralar WhatsAp group.

"WTF: Former Bournemouth striker Tokelo Rantie has been removed from the South African squad for farting on the manager," a million tweets that came out after the match.




Rizespor 2 - 1 Genclerbirligi

Hopes were high after last week's good performance against Galatasaray but...

Bugger all Kankas at the Alerta on Friday night, just Jimmy and his good lady Rose, and me and Little Oz. Not a completely full pub but plenty of atmosphere anyway. Then Gencler managed to kill any enthusiasm by playing rubbish.

Everything seemed wrong, especially the attitude. There was way too much arguing with the referee and the anger seemed to translate into rash decisions all over the place. In the end we were given about seven yellow cards, most of them deserved.

The first goal was the fault of one of the arguers. Rize had a good attack and sent a pass into the box which went straight to our defender Ahmet Ugur who had a go at it, missed, and the ball hit his non-kicking leg and bouncing straight to the Rize attacker bang in front.

Once again we were down 1-0 after just 10 minutes or so...

Then it was all rubbish for the rest of the first half.

We strangely started with Rantie up front. The South African who we bought from Bournemouth a few months ago has yet to impress... and was rightly taken off at half time. Serdar was also taken off for Aydin Karabulut. A good decision that gave a bit of spark on the right.

It was a much better half and we finally got an equaliser in the 76th. It was a bit of a scramble but it counted. Good to see Muriqi get on the scoreboard, something that should boost his confidence.

Our joy lasted about three minutes when an unfortunate handball happened in the box. Penalty... and converted.

Disappointing.