Will Cemal Aydin run again?

It certainly isn't the biggest surprise in the world but Ankaragucu have decided not to hold an early general congress and thus the "signals" are there that Cemal Aydin will run for chairman once again, Hurriyet reported on Wednesday.

It seems that the recent good run by the team on the park has given Aydin the confidence to keep going. As we reported earlier here, the board had previously decided to hold the congress in early December. Aydin had also promised that he would not run.

I wonder if the team's good performances will actually save Aydin. Afterall, the fans have been calling for his resignation since before the season begun and last week I noticed a group of fans in Kapali shouting "yonetim istifa" even though the team was 2-0 up and about to post its sixth-straight win.

Don't be surprised Mr. Aydin if at Ankaragucu's next home game in a couple of weeks that the entire crowd will be screaming for your scalp.

Ego trip? More like an ego trap.

When I think of the highs of writing for this blog I think of meeting up with the Bilkent Kankas, having Zagreb Kanka join us, teasing Sir Eski Kanka is always fun and of course I enjoy the riches that is the almost 100 dollars we have made out of advertising.

I have to admit though that it truely was a great ego boost when a few weeks ago a message was left on the comments section of one of our posts asking if we would be interested in helping out a UK television company in wanting to make a show about Turkish fans.

Let me repeat the original message:

"I am currently researching for a television prodcution company in the Uk. We are researching a programme concerning Turkish football. All of you here seem to be an ideal bridge for us to get a feel for everything. Would you like to help? I don't know how we can exchange email addresses. Mine is ****@****.uk.com please email me if you would like to help"

Having been guilty of it a million times in the past I ignored the spelling error in the first sentence and was instead caught by the hook... "an ideal bridge", that's us clearly. "Would we like to help?" You bet.

Since then myself and Sir Eski Kanka have been involved in more than 30 e-mails pinging back and forward between Turkey and England

I was extremely excited. Sure, getting a link from Gulay or Ahmet is great but this was over the top.

But then we started to get our suspicions:

"We are making a programme which is going to focus on the fan culture in Turkey. Obviously a large part of the programme will focus on Fenerbahce, Galatasaray and Besiktas, but we are also looking to go to a different city as well, which led us to Ankara as Ankaragucu and Genclerbirligi seem to have good fan bases. We are going to look at a broad spectrum of different supporter levels. The extreme elements will play a key role too. English speakers would be best as the programme is going to be shown over here. We want to get a real feel of the culture, which fans are the most extreme, which the best etc."

Extreme? Mmmm. What are they playing at?

Our e-mail conversations continued and it was at this point that I noticed a large number of search enquiries from Google from a single service provider in the UK. The search enquiries were such things as "genclerbirligi hooliganism" or "ankaragucu street fighting" and variations on the theme. As the only English-language blog writing about such things it was little wonder they found us. Not surprising really as a search for "looking for boyfriend Ankara" will also find us near the top of the google charts.

We decided to let it go on anyway and last Sunday, before the Ankaragucu-Rize match we finally met up with these people who had flown in from the UK. Carl, the producer, and Rana, a researcher, were lovely people. They both seemed to have really enjoyed their few days here in Turkey and understood that this was a very safe country.

The only hassle was that they continually asked about all the violent incidents that we have encountered as Ankara football fans. We, of course, explained that it is more dangerous going out anywhere in London on a Saturday night than it is to go to a football match in Ankara but still they persisted.

The two of them had to go off to the airport and thus couldn't actually come to the match to see what it is really like but they did leave behind a couple of DVDs of their company's previous work.

"The Real Football Factories" is their franchise and lets just say that it does not put football fans in a nice light. You can check out one of their shows here

Trainspotting Kanka had already warned me not to have anything to do with this lot, and having seen the DVDs and the website above I can't agree more.

In other words, if you are contacted by ZigZag productions in the next few days or weeks, steer well clear. Their aim is to paint us Gencler and Ankaragucu fans with mud.

I've also posted this advice on various Ankaragucu and Genclerbirligi forums.

Having said all that, their "The Real Football Factories: Scotland" does have some interesting Hibs stuff :) But by God where on earth did they they find that presenter

ANKARAGUCU AND THE NON-LOVE AFFAIR WITH HURRIYET

Greetings Kankas and Kankies.

For those of you who are unfamilier with the press in Turkey, it is my understanding that The Hurriyet has the largest circulation in Turkey (Oz Kanka will correct me if I'm wrong !!). Every Tuesday there is a Footie Panorama section which gives the league stats, team of the weekend, players of the weekend, etc.

It is therefore with disappointment that I report that after 13 weeks league footie, only 3 ANKARAGUCU players have made it into the team of the weekend, and zero times as team of the weekend.

I don't want to downgrade the achievement of Sivas in beating Besiktas and featuring as team of the weekend this week, however, it is apparent to me that The Hurriyet perhaps are unaware of the recent exploits of ANKARAGUCU.

Six wins out of six starts is surely something that demands attention, and I am sure that if our team name was ISTANBULGUCU it would be a different story !!!

If the Hurriyet sports team are reading our blog, I therefore invite you to attend the Sakarya/ANKARAGUCU match next Saturday and take your blinkers off !!!

By the way, well done Bebbe for making team of the weekend !!

All the best from Hurriyet Hater Eski Kanka Jim

Hibees back on track

Hibs beat Inverness on Saturday 2-0 to haul themselves back up the league. Goals from Steven Flether and a penalty from Chris Killen, both in the second half, saw Hibs finally beat Inverness for the first time in six matches. Hibs could easily have been behind in the first half but a tremendous double save from Zibi kept Hibs in the game. Hibs new manager John Collins had kept faith in his keeper after some costly errors and his faith was repaid in full.

Hibs never quite hit the level of performance they reached against Hearts last Wednesday but the important thing was that they managed to pick up the three points. The other SPL scores were as follows:
St Mirren 1-3 Celtic
Rangers 2-0 Dunfermline
Dundee Utd 1-0 Kilmarnock
Aberdeen 2-1 Motherwell
Falkirk v Hearts (Tonight)

Celtic might be 15 points clear of the pack but the fight for second place is making the league a bit more interesting than normal. Only three points seperate six teams. Second place will get a Champions League qualifier so there is plenty to play for.

Hibbee Kanka

Are we violent?

Ankaragucu 2 - Rizespor 0
Erciyes 0 - Genclerbirligi 2

Up at the crack of dawn this morning in order to get to the Chopin at the extremely uncivilised time of 11 am to find Trainspotting Kanka drinking his coffee and chatting away to Carl and Rana, a producer and researcher for a UK television company.

They were in town to do some background work for a show they are putting together all about Turkish football fans. It appears that their main interest is in the more violent side of football fans.

Poor guys, sure, Turkish football supporters have got a terrible reputation, thanks in large part to the English tabloids, but I've hardly seen a violent incident in years of going to Gencler and Ankaragucu games. In other words I reckon they will have a difficult time making their documentary.

Anyway, speaking of peaceful people Maniac Kanka Harun joined us, as did Dirk, Lulu and Lulu's boyfriend. Lulu has only been in Ankara for a month or so and while she was unable to come along to the match itself I'm sure she will joing us soon.

Two other long lost souls from the wilds of Bilkent also showed up, Battle-hardened Kanka Damon and Mountaineering Kanka Robbie.

All up a decent turn-out, Sir Eski Kanka was sufferring at work, poor bugger.

Off to the stadium nice and early and the crowd was quite a decent one. Bugger all Rizespor supporters of course but Maraton was pretty much full, both sides of kapali were pretty much full and the gecekondu crowd wasn't too bad either.

And were they up for it? You bet. Five wins on the trot for Ankaragucu had the fans in full voice. The atmosphere today was brilliant. Shame no one told the players.

Let's just say that despite Rize not being very good and Ankaragucu dominating it wasn't until the 24th minute before Ankaragucu had a shot on goal.

Oh I did forget that a few minutes before that Rize almost scored from a free kick which went onto Ankaragucu's forward Mustafa Ozkan who was denied an own goal by the post.

Another close shave came when the Gucu defence allowed a bald bloke from Rize a free header. Nonsense stuff.

0-0 half time and tensions were rising. Including on the terraces where for some reason a group of the Anti-X supporters started shouting stuff at a group of Genc Ankaragucu supporters. No idea what started off the handbags but the cops were having none of it. Fully tooled riot police were ordered in and although nothing happened, the atmosphere was definately tense. Perhaps that TV company are onto something.

Second half and both sides had chances. The difference was that Ankaragucu, and Tita in particular, seemed more intent on fancy passes around the box instead of actually having a shot.

Again the bald bloke from Rize was left unmarked twice were he could have scored with that shiny pate and then he really stuffed up when he was one-on-one with Serkan (who actually had a very good game).

And so it was against the run of play when Bebbe scored for Ankaragucu with a header off a corner.

A few minutes later and Ankaragucu sealed it after a lovely move down the wing which led to Ceyhun sending the ball to Bebbe who whacked it into the back of the net.

Us happy campers then went off to the Cappadocia bar to warm up.

It was here that we learnt of the other great result today. Erciyesspor 0, Genclerbirligi 2.

It was an away match and thus I have to rely on the Anatolian news agency who report that neither goal was scored by Isaac Promise. In fact, Isaac was replaced in the 74th minute and in their star report Anatolia gave Isaac one star out of a possible three (being chosen in the first 11 is enough to earn that one star).

But perhaps I'm being too tough on the young bloke because I doubt there was much need for attack considering that Engin Baytar and Okan Ozturk had both scored within 5 minutes of the match starting.

All up a great weekend which pulls both Gencler and Ankaragucu further away from the drop zone and closer towards a UEFA place. Let's keep dreaming.

The round ball in Ankaragucu Show Hibs the Way

Hibs followed Ankaragucu's example tonight and beat Hearts in the League cup quarter final by one goal to nil. The game was very one sided as Hibs corner count of 14 to 2 proves however with only one goal to show for their efforts the nerves were showing towards the end.

Hibs goal came from one of their corners, the ball fell at Rob Jones feet and he lashed it into the net. That goal came after about half an hour and was the least Hibs deserved. I do not know where Hearts usual fight was, maybe playing Hartley wide right instead of through the centre took the edge of their game. In any case Thomson, Brown, Beuzalin and Zemama had complete control and a bit more luck would surley have provided some goals.

It is a refreshing look to the semi final draw this year with no Rangers or Celtic in sight. The other quarter finals were as follows:

Rangers 0-2 St Johnstone
Celtic 1-1 Falkirk (Falkirk won on pens)
Killie 3-2 Motherwell

The semi finals are not till next March I think, plenty time to mull over the possible scenarios.

C'Mon the Hibs

ANKARAGUCU - GIMME FIVE !!!

Greetings Kankas and Kankies.

I think we will have to go back (a long way ?) in time to discover the last time ANKARAGUCU won FIVE straight matches.

The Turkish Cup result today was.........

Genclerbirligi 0 ANKARAGUCU 1

Three league wins and two cup wins on the trot for ANKARAGUCU is pretty impressive, especially after their abysmal start to the season.

All the kankas were heads down at work today, with the exception of yours truly. So, I visited Maniac Kanka Harun in his Sports Shop...... advertisement time...

Esse Spor, Menekse Sokak, Balkanoglu Carsisi, No 7/32, Kizilay.

and tried to convince him that the cup match was more important than selling sports kit. That took all of 30 seconds and then we were off to Chopin for some `refreshments` !!

Arriving at the Stadium we forgot (olde age ??!!) that it was an away match for ANKARAGUCU and so we had to walk round to the other side but with only 15 minutes to KO time. We therefore decided to go to Kapali and stand with the Pegasus Group. That was an added bonus because I met Volkan (Leader) and lots of my old Pegasus friends from the good old days in Sahil.

The match kicked off with ANKARAGUCU again starting like an express train and they opened the scoring after only 5 minutes before we had time to catch our breath.

An attacking move down the left and a cross into Bebbe who did well to lose his marker. The goalkeeper committed himself but was left fumbling as Bebbe cut the ball back for the incoming Tita and he almost burst the net with his gift from Bebbe.

Jumping up and down and singing time and we were all in full voice.

ANKARAGUCU continued to press forward with the ocassional breakaway from Gencler, but in all honesty there should have been more goals from ANKARAGUCU. The fact that Ceyhun and Mustafa (the 2 top goalscorers) were being rested perhaps contributed to that situation.

Gencler started the 2nd half in more determined fashion but most of their efforts were long range. There was one scare for ANKARAGUCU though when Serkan came running off his line to punch a clearance but it went straight to a Gencler forward who drove it in for a sure fire goal. However, the ever reliable Sedat was on the line to head clear.

ANKARAGUCU's Murat had 2 clear cut chances to put the game beyond doubt but declined to score at the invitation of an open goal. He decided to blast the ball over the bar !!

The noise in the 2nd half was unbelieveable. I kid you not that the Gecikondu boys (and us in Pegasus) sang the same song about following ANKARAGUCU through wind, rain, snow and any other weather front for the whole of the 2nd half. You really had to be there to appreciate the passion of these supporters. I can't find the words to do them justice.

Oh...... sorry.... I forgot to mention the Gencler supporters who cheered their team when they came out for the 2nd half. Maniac Kanka and I counted the supporters but we disagreed on the number. He said 38, but I'm sure it was only 37 !!!!

The last 10 minutes of the match was all about ANKARAGUCU holding on to what they had and that really wasn't a problem for Serkan, Sedat, Emre, Dereli and Petrov. However, we did receive a few yellow cards for time wasting tactics.... tut tut tut !!!

It was off to the Cappadokia after the match for more amber nectar and some comisserations to the owner who supports Gencler. He was asking why Oz Kanka was absent ??!!!

ANKARAGUCU now lead the group stage with 6 points from 2 matches and are looking good to join either Gencler or Besiktas in the final stages. Incidentally, Buca of the 2nd Division beat Rize today to more or less eliminate Rize from further interest in the group.

Wednesday afternoon footie is not quite the same as weekend footie but there was a fair sized ANKARAGUCU crowd today to at least bring some atmosphere to the match.

Back to league footie at the weekend.

All the best from Eski Kanka Jim