Too little, too late.

Ankaragucu 0 - Manisaspor 1

Froze my tuchus off last night watching a gradually improving Ankaragucu squad get beat yet again. Contrary to what Hakan Kutlu said we really did not deserve a draw, but the team did look a bit stronger. I'll be back later today with some more details.

 

Gencler keep climbing the table

This was a great match with twists and turns all the way through. With other results going our way Genclerbirligi now find themselves in fourth place and in a great position to get into the play-offs. There is still a long way to go but my confidence is high.

Kayserispor 2 - 3 Genclerbirligi

I may have been the only Kanka at the Beer Bus on Sunday afternoon but I was joined by about 30 Gencler fans, all of whom were just a little bit scared. Gencler has been playing okay footy since the half-way mark, but not brilliant football. Kayseri on the other hand have been doing pretty well recently.

On to the match and it was good to see we were pretty much back to our regular line-up. Cem Can was back from his red card-forced sidelining. The attack looked good, with Herve Tum up front supported on the wings by Hursut and Yasin. Oktay and Azofeifa in midfield. Aykut back for good at the back and the rest all names we are now familiar with.

Kick-off and er... er... it was all Kayserispor. They looked more dangerous and controlled the vast majority of the ball. It was only a bit of luck that saved us on a few occasions with former Gencler player James Troisi looking especially dangerous.

But football is football and it was pretty much against the run of play when we took the lead. A free-kick from a fair distance. Azofeifa takes it, straight to Aykut's head and in.

Much cheering at the Beer Bus but it wasn't long before Troisi equalised. He had an excellent match for Kayseri. "Your countryman just scored against us" one of the Alkaralar honchos told me as I tried to hide under the table. It wasn't so long ago when they used to clap me on the back as if I had personally scored whenever one of the Gencler Aussies found the back of the net. Not any more obviously.

Half-time and most reckoned we could win the match. We had a few shots well saved, some shots which should have been goals and at least one off the post. We could get this.

Then something we don't see very often. Yasin sent the ball along the ground to Tum just outside the box and he kicked it with a great left footer into the goal. Let me repeat that, he actually kicked, as opposed to headed, a goal. 2-1 up and there was nothing but joy.

Not long later though Kayseri equalised again thanks to some bad man marking at the back. Come'on boys. We can still do it.

And we did. Five minutes of injury time were announced and with one of them gone, Ergun sent a ball through to former Ankaragucu player Murat Dururer on the left. He ran with it and passed perfectly to Ermin Zec who made no mistake. Final result. 2 - 3.

All up a great match. Lots of goals, lots of attacking football from both sides and, most importantly, the right result.

It certainly is fun to be supporting Gencler this season.

Gencler go higher and higher

No time to give a full report at the moment. Genclerbirligi have managed to win away with a last minute goal. It was nerve-wracking stuff. More tomorrow.

Kayserispor 2 - 3 Genclerbirligi

Ankaragucu vs Manisaspor match preview 1

Ankaragucu host Manisaspor this Monday night at home in the Turkcell Super Lig.

Ankaragucu lost at home to Orduspor midweek while Manisaspor lost 3-2 at home to Eskisehirspor. Both sides are on a poor run of form at the moment. Ankaragucu have lost 17 players since the season started, while Manisaspor have failed to win in there last 13 matches.

The last time the two sides met Manisaspor won 2-0 thanks to goals from Erdogan and Gokoglan. At that point Manisa were sitting pretty in the top 5 while Ankaragucu were struggling at the bottom of the table. Since then Ankargucu have lost many players due to unpaid wages and have only won 2 games all season.

Manisaspor hired former Ankargucu manager Umut Ozat who will return to the 19 Mayis stadium for the first time since he resigned. Ozat didn't have the best of times at Ankaragucu and even found himself been attacked by an Ankaragucu fan during a league game.

Both sides are struggling at the bottom of the table, Manisaspor are been dragged into a relegation battle, while Ankaragucu are rooted to the bottom of the league. Manisa have some good players in Isaac Promise, Labinot Harbuzi and Yigit Incedemir. They also have ex Ankaragucu duo Murat Erdogan and Michael Klukowski in the team.

Ankaragucu lost both Ergin Keles and Bora Kork last week and now only have Aydin Toscali, Muhammet Turkmen and Mehmet Cogum from the team that started the season. Young players like Ishak Dogan, Bilal Gulden and Atilla Aybars will be key to the future at Ankargucu and the more games they play the better they will become.

Its going to be another tough game for Ankaragucu, lets just hope the fans get to see Ankaragucu score some goals.

At least it wasn't four this time

Not much to write about Ankaragucu's 2-0 loss to Ordu tonight. It's all the same ol' story. Maybe I'll write something about the match tomorrow, but given how uninspired I am, I probably won't.

We love you Oktay, we do!

It had a scoresless draw written all over it. Frustration, frustration, but then Oktay pulled off one of our best goals this season. We needed the three points if we are to keep up our challenge for a European spot. In the end we got them.

Genclerbirligi 1 - 0 Gaziantepspor

It is bloody freezing in Ankara at the moment and there was no way I was going to the stadium for tonight's match. A few mad people did, such as Ertank, Thijs and Charlie, but there is no way I was heading off to stand in minus 5 degrees on a Wednesday night.

So instead Little Oz Kanka and myself headed off to the Red Lion Club to watch the match on the telly. Spine joined us a bit after kick-off but there wasn't a lot to say of the Gencler team.

With Cem Can out thanks to a red card in our last match, new signing Ersin Martin was given a chance. It was good to see Aykut back in the starting eleven and despite his nine or 10 goals this season I was happy to see Herve Tum left off the squad.

It all started fairly well with Gencler seeming to be the better team but then Spine showed up at the 20th minute mark and we started playing complete rubbish. A million long balls to no where, and some desperate scrambling defence. Antep should probably have scored but for some great work in goal from Ramazan.

We had the odd chance but it didn't really look like either team was going to score. And so the first half ended 0 - 0.

With Cem Can out thanks to the red card, Hursut was given the captain's armband for tonight. Too much pressure?

"It's the same as when they gave Botham the captaincy," said Spine, referring to something that the Yanks amongst us will have no idea what he is talking about. "Or Flintoff for that matter," I replied.

Hursut was really out of sorts for most of the match.

At the same time though, he is a player who you cannot hold down and who tries his best at all times. He is still, by far, my favourite player in the side.

Both teams went for it in the second half and both were unlucky not to score. Gencler though seemed to really pick themselves up once Ermin Zec was brought on mid-way though the half.

Zec himself didn't seem to be doing that much but the team lifted with the attacking option. Then in the 78th minute Oktay on the left, just inside the box, jinked his man and sent the ball flying. The diving Gaziantep keeper almost got to it. What a goal! Bloody brilliant.

We had to defend a bit towards the end but in the end the three points were ours. We deserved it and our hunt for a European place continues.

How did Ankaragucu fall? We have no idea

How is it that a club that has played for more than 30 years in the top flight of Turkish football suddenly find itself without a single player of note, whose players can't even swap jerseys at the end of a match because there is no money in the coffers?

How is it that a club with more than 100 years of history behind it find themselves on the brink of annihilation? Clubs in Turkey have disappeared before and will disappear again, but this is a club with thousands of supporters. Supporters who have in the last few weeks sent food to the team. A club who has had members of parliament, from both sides of the aile, pledge their support and cash to keep the club running.

No one will pretend that Ankaragucu was not being run in the best of fashions a few years ago. It was a common occurance during matches for the fans to sing their displeasure at the then chairman of club, Cemal Aydin. A number of times Aydin acknowledged this and promised to stand down. When it came to the annual general meetings however, he ran again and again.

Ankaragucu, like all clubs in Turkey, is a club that is run by a board that is elected by its members. Unlike some clubs abroad, you cannot simply buy a club in Turkey. Even those high flying clubs like Galatasaray or Besiktas which are listed on the stockmarket cannot be bought outright. The members still have a vote, and each member's vote is equal.

But just who are the members? How do you become a member? How does a committed Ankaragucu fan get involved in the club if there is almost no way of actually joining the club and therefore gaining a right to vote? At the last Extraordinary General Meeting in November last year, following a court decision to annual the AGM where the Gokceks took control, just 130 members voted - One-hundred-and-thirty -

A decent club will have membership details on its website. Just as an example I give the Balmain Rugby League club which I supported back in Australia, and which many members of my family have been members of for many, many years. Click on this link and you'll see how to become a member, what the latest accounts are, what were the results of the latest AGM. You can't find any of this on the Ankaragucu website (or on many other Turkish football clubs' websites for that matter). As I write this post, the Ankaragucu website hasn't been updated for almost two months.

When thinking about writing this post I realised just how little I know about how football clubs work in Turkey. With that in mind I want to talk about Ankaragucu and just how little we know about why the club has collapsed.

At "The round ball in Ankara" we have written before about the political problems the club has faced. The timeline is here.

The question I'd like to ask today is how is it that the club has become so bankrupt?

I've not seen any accounts for the club, and would love to see some if anyone wants to send them to me.

During the short time that the Gokceks were in control the club spent up big. Plenty of times the club seemed to have difficulty in paying its debts but then again, every now and then they paid off big sums owed to players, or hotels or bus leasing companies. Nary a month passed without an "Ankaragucu unable to pay debts" story not being printed.

There is the question though of where did the money come from to pay off some of these debts? It can't have come from the Ankara Municipality, that would be illegal. Could it possibly, maybe, certainly not being suggested by us, have come from companies that have benefitted from contracts awarded to them from the municipality?

So where did it come from? Some sort of fairy godmother?

And then when the courts took the club off the Gokceks, the club suddenly found that it was in debt to the tune of nearly 100 million lira and all of these fairy godmothers who had saved the club in the past had disappeared. How is it that a club could run with massive debts, but still somehow manage to pay some of them, and then suddenly collapse overnight, as soon as the Gokceks lost control?

Who pulled out? Who stopped giving cash to the club? Why were they giving cash to the club in the first place?

We don't know.

Where is the TFF inquiry into the matter? A bit of transparency would go a long way to solve the problems of Turkish football. Boy, and I haven't even mentioned match-fixing.

If you are reading this and find that it is a load of uninformed rubbish then I encourage you to write in and inform us, because as hard as I try, I have found it extremely difficult to figure out anything and that in itself is a disgrace.