ANKARAGUCU - DAYLIGHT APPEARING

Greetings Kankas and Kankies.

Ankaragucu is gradually putting daylight between themselves and the bottom 5 clubs - 8 points ahead of 3rd bottom Diyabakir. However, we can't breathe a sigh of relief just yet !

The bottom 4 all have difficult matches next weekend, but ...... are there any easy ones these days ?!

Ankaragucu's match also falls into the difficult category, especially after we witnessed Besiktas pull back a 0-2 deficit last weekend against Eskisehir. They are fast and so it MUST be full-on from Ankaragucu for 90 minutes plus !

That said, Ankaragucu can still be confident of taking on Besiktas and restoring much needed pride against this hated club and their shit supporters.

It's a Friday night KO at 8pm in (and I'm reliably informed about this) 19 Mayis Stadium.

Unfortunately, I will be unable to attend this match due to work commitments, but I'll be free-ed up to watch it in the Beer Bus Bar.

For the kankas who will be going, I suggest getting to the Stadium earlyish - it is sure to be a full house.

Prediction ...... this is Vassel's opportunity to make a name for himself and what better time to do it than against 'that lot' and to give Bursa a helping hand to the league title. Oh yes, and put Ankaragucu further up into mid-table security.

See you in the Beer Bus Bar post-match for victoreeeeee celebrations ??!!!

All the best from Eski Kanka Jim

Got 'em

I've been out all day at a cricket umpiring course and didn't even hear the result of today's match until well after the final whistle. In the end though I heard that Gencler won. "Hooray" from me. "Football hooligan" came the the word from my cricket teacher.

Of course, the above is not true, the cricket teacher telling me off that is. The true bıt is that we won.

No in length reports tonight just the score. But still, a great win for Gencler.

Genclerbirligi 1 -0 Diyarbakirspor



I lost count how many times we hit the post.

Cliche headline about match fixing in Turkey

The Turkish football world was rocked to its foundations on Wednesday as police in 26 provinces were kept busy taking a total of 46 people into custody in relation to a match-fixing scandal in which dozens of matches in various leagues are alleged to have been fiddled.

As we reported back in January, one of the matches alleged to have been fixed was the Istanbul BBS - Genclerbirligi match towards the end of last season. Our goalkeeper at the time, Recep Ozturk, was yesterday arrested in Konya and flown to Istanbul. Others involved in the match that were taken into custody included Istanbul BBS trainer Arif Erdem, their goalkeeper Kenan Hasagic and Taner Gulleri.

Some of the other big names who were questioned yesterday included former Galatasaray player Fatih Aykel, Erman Kılıç of Sivasspor and Kayserispor's Umut Koçin and Durmuş Bayram. Savaş Polat, the man who allegedly the man who transfered the money to the players on the make, was arrested in Antalya.

Knock knock

Whilst most were taken into custody during early morning raids, according to a report in Hurriyet, Istanbul police were watching the televised funeral of former Galatasaray Chairman Ozhan Canaydin when they saw some of the "wanted". They called Bursa police and the unnamed players or trainers or whoever were arrested after the funeral. Seven people are still being sought by The Bill.

The Turkish Football Federation said yesterday that it had made the request for an investigation in August last year and had been co-operating with the Sariyer Prosecutor's Office and the Istanbul Financial Crimes Office throughout the eight-month investigation.

The TFF statement said they had suspicions about three games and that later the investigation was widened after news that German prosecutors were looking into match-fixing in Turkey. A police team then went to Bochum in Germany and came home with lots of translation homework.

All in all quite a story, and we still don't really know very much. The Financial Crimes police weren't saying much yesterday but one thing we do know is that if true quite a few people will end up behind bars. As there is as yet no actual crime on the Turkish law books on match-fixing, Sports Minister Faruk Ozak said yesterday that he would be sending one to the cabinet very soon, those involved are most likely to be prosecuted under anti-organised crime laws.

Oh, and one last thing. Recep Ozturk isn't Ilhan Cavcav's son-in-law (as was reported today in at least one paper) - at least not in a legal sense. As we quoted Cavcav back in January when the allegations against Ozterk first became public. "Keeper Recep is our son-in-law (damat). He's married to the daughter of a close friend of mine."

UPDATE: 4:30pm on Thursday. A total of 56 people have now been helping police with their enquires and six, including Fatih Aykel and Recep Ozturk have both taken to court to probably be charged.

UPDATE: 6:39 pm on Thursday. Fatih Aykel has been charged with fraud and membership of an illegal organisation.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: 11:08 pm on Thursday. Recep Öztürk and Tepecikspor Chairman Temel Eyüpoğlu have now also been charged with fraud and membership of a criminal organisation.

JUST ONE MORE UPDATE: 11:53 pm on Friday. More developments today with 11 more people being charged, bringing the total to 15. Not a lot of detail though and no one really famous.

Former Gencler keeper helping police with their enquiries

A short report on news that 15 people were taken into custody today as part of a police investigation into match fixing which we first reported about back in January (well, actually it was Milliyet which broke the story and I didn't even see it until Today's Zaman did a report - but finally we packaged it up together on Ankara's favourite blog.)

There isn't a lot of information out there at the moment, but players from Kayserispor and Sivasspor have been taken into custody, as has former Galatasaray player (now a trainer at Istanbul BBS) Arif Erdem and former Genclerbirligi keeper Recep Ozturk.

Check out the link above for the allegations regarding Ozturk. I will no doubt update this story tomorrow when we have a bit more info.

Three out of three for everyone at Gencler

I had a cricket captains' meeting today and so wasn't able to listen to the Genclerbirligi - Sivas match on the radio. In fact it wasn't until afterwards when having a late lunch with the Mrs and Little Oz Kanka at Cepa that I even remembered that a match was on. It was at that point that Little Oz noticed NTV spor was on and the scores were rolling across the screen. The Ankaragucu result came up first. "Wow" was my comment and the the Gencler score. "YEEESSSSSSSS!" Little Oz and myself shouted, as Mrs. Oz curled up in embarassment.

Sivasspor 0 - 2 Genclerbirligi

From the short notes that the Anatolian news agency reported I figured out the following.

Sivas had the first chances with two shots in the first 15 minutes but Gencler went ahead in the 24th minute thanks to an "organised attack" which ended up with Mustafa Pektemek one-on-one with the keeper. He shot and it was in.

Sivas continued to attack with our keeper saving at least a few more shots before half-time.

The home side continued to attack but Serdar and the defence held firm before Kahe found himself in front and found the back of the net in the 83rd.

And that was that. A great result against a team that last year was fighting for the title but this year fighting to avoid the drop. For the first time in a long time Anatolia gave three stars out of three for every Gencler player, including the reserves.

Gençlerbirliği: Serdar xxx, Orhan xxx, İlhan xxx, Aykut xxx, Radeljic xxx, Vranjes xxx (Dk. 67 Kerem xxx), Sandro xxx (Dk. 79 Hurşit xxx), Tozo xxx, Mustafa xxx, Cem Can xxx, Serkan xxx (Dk. 67 Kahe xxx)

Next week we are at home to Diyarbakirspor. I'm off doing an umpires course and won't be able to make it but I'll inform you all as to details etc.

I'll put up a youtube video of the goals as soon as someone uploads them.

And here it is:

ANKARAGUCU GET OUT OF JAIL !

Greetings Kankas and Kankies.

Something to celebrate tonight me thinks !

ANKARAGUCU 3 Kayserispor 0

I wasn't so happy yesterday when I saw that Dee-eye-bay-kir and Manisa both won, so today's result is defo a get out of jail for Ankaragucu.

More good news ...... Gencler went to Sivas and won 2-0. Thanks to our brother team and look forward to Oz Kanka's upbeat report later.

All we need to hear now is that Trabzon beat Galatasaray tonight and ..... with apologies to Bellshill Kanka Nadeem ....... that St Mirren beat Rangers in the Scottish League Cup Final !!

Probably Lemerre read Nadeem's team selection on our Blog yesterday ! However, I'll give team news and scorers tomorrow as an edit.

For now ....... let's celebrate (at last) yesssssssssss !

I'm on my balcony and just about to crack open my 2nd Efes wooooopeeee !!

All the best from a relieved Eski Kanka Jim


EDIT - 22 March

Lemerre's team selection was unsurprising and I hope Nadeem will not be too upset that Broggi was omitted !!

Serkan
Geremi, Koray, Rajnoch and El-Yasa
Mehmet, Hurriyet, Sapara and Rothen
Vassel and Vittek

2nd half subs used - Cihan, Bilal and Adem

As Connect Kanka reported in the comments section, Geremi scored with a penalty on 26 mins, and Vitek scored the other two on 41 and 82 mins.

So, next weekend Ankaragucu will win 3-0 against Ankaraspor !!! Also, if the following results go to form ......

Antalya beat Manisa
Antep beat Sivas
Gencler beat Diyabakir

then ..... Ankaragucu can go EIGHT points clear of 3rd bottom Sivas and Diyabakir.

This will then give Ankaragucu the 'cushion' they need going into the last part of the season and hopefully avoid those nerve jangling last few games when points are do or die !!

All the best from Eski Kanka Jim

ANKARAGUCU - PUNISHED TOMORROW

Greetings Kankas and Kankies.

More doom and gloom to report !

You saw in the previous post that Ankaragucu would be punished by the TFF for the 'naughty' behaviour of our 'fans' in Istanbul last week.

Well, Oz Kanka has informed me that the punishment will take effect tomorrow for the Kayseri match.

It will be played in the 19 Mayis Stadium to an empty stadium !

I doubt very much if Lig TV will screen it, but if they do, I'll get word around to you tomorrow morning.

Here's hoping I have some good news to report tomorrow night ..... for a change !

All the best from Eski Kanka Jim