Red and Black, Here is Ankara

Not every away match city is nice. Besides wonderful cities like Trabzon, Gaziantep and Samsun, there are grey and always sad cities like Ankara, where I compulsorily go. Although only Gençlerbirliği combats in the Super Toto Super Leage, three teams of this gloomy city were combating in the Super League back in the days. I wish the teams of beautiful cities including Izmir, Mardin, Antakya and Adana could combat in the 1^st League that we could see beautiful cities, eat delicious meals and write good articles for away matches… (Ughh ughh, everyone thinks oneself). I have found an easy way in my opinion; since there are flights to Ankara at every hour, I generally go to the matches by air at 15.00 - 16.00 and return immediately after the matches. As far as I remember, only once I went to there with the team, stayed one night and returned immediately after the match. Then, we went to a fish restaurant named Trilye. Do not say that it is out of question that there is a fish restaurant in Ankara; it was one of the best fish restaurants I have ever gone. http://www.trilye.com.tr/

As in the famous wording, “The best thing of Ankara is the time when you leave there”. It is wonderful especially if you return with three points. However, this time, it is safe to say that we were beaten 3-3, although we kicked three goals.

Oops, let’s go back to the beginning. After a long time, I went to Ankara in a Sunny day. My friend, the city is grey even in a sunny day. Top it all, its traffic is competing with the one of İstanbul. The city seems like begging “Do not like me, do not like me!” The ugly shanties on the road from the airport to the city have been brought down and ugly TOKI houses have been built there.  I am not sure if they were built by TOKI but they are so ugly that I thought only TOKI could build such bad.

Since the subject is Ankara, I aspire to Behzat Ç. and criticize both Ankara and TOKI, I  hope nothing is wrong with my future.  It is a matter of time that I talk to you behind the prison bars. I can write behind the bars and even be elected as member of the parliament but I do not what to do if I could not go to see the matches.

If we put up the jokes, Ankara is truly is not a place to love.

I can reach the city from the airport within about an hour. I got off the bus of Havaş exactly before the stadium, but there were 2,5 hours to the match. I decided to join the team at the hotel assuming that it was close. This took me 50 minutes. We drank a cup of tea at the hotel and got on the minibuses to return to the stadium (where I got on the taxi one hour before). This also took me 50 minutes. To crown it all, the driver could not find the entrance and took two tours around the stadium, I found myself thinking that that was a joke of Ankara.  

I talked about the protocol tribune entrances but Ankara is the pioneer in this issue. At the protocol where whoever you see is a minister or a member of the parliament or a bureaucrat, it was bursting at the seams. We barely sat down to our place where otherwise we cannot sit down if anyone already took our place. We began to watch the match.

The match was interesting and a lot of goals were kicked. It was bad to kick three goals and not to beat at an away match. As you know, I do not interpret the match in these articles but I would like to talk about the uniform exchange which is a ritual of a match I like the most. I was enchanted by the fact that whatever happens during the match, the footballers exchange their uniforms. Not misunderstand, I find it very sportsmanlike and friendly. I consider it very valuable that the footballers who get stuck in during the match give value to each other’s uniform as an indication that the match ends up and I hope this become a sample for the fans at the tribune who go at it hammer and tongs. As I always say, sport is initially a joy and amusement.

Speaking of uniform, I have finally received Melo’s jersey for my sport trainer, to whom I had promised. Actually, it was a jersey from the match with Ordu but I could take it only after this match because of the national match break.

For me, a jersey, particularly which is exuded in a match is holy. When I received the jersey, one of the jersey I like the most, in Ankara, I remember the jersey I had received after our match with Hacettepe on 1 May 2009.  Please look and tell me if it does not worth to give value... :))

It was actually a historical day on which I received this jersey. I received this jersey from Harry Kewell who had promised me a long time ago. Let me prove it that it is received from that match in order that nobody doubts about it. And this is also the match line up which I took before the match... 

(Since 2004 when I purchased my digital camera, I have taken the photographs of both the match line up and the score board. However, some of those images were lost in a computer break but most of them still exist.)

In that match, we were beaten by Hacettepe, 2-0, I did not enjoy the jersey since we were very sad. Top it all, the fans attack on Hasan Şaş, a fact that I have never appreciated. Hasan was our crazy, sprit and blood. He rejected many contracts request from other teams, just because of the fact that he loved Galatasaray. He put signature under many cups of Galatasaray; he just put his heart to his job. In this match, he played just in the last ten minutes as a saver, but he remained inefficient since he was at the end of his career and dispirited. He was thrown mobile phone and computer in İstanbul, can you believe that?

The jersey below is from the match between Gaziantep and Galatasaray on 6 April 2009.  That is, it is one of the valuables….

The article I commenced writing for Ankara for some reason ended to be an article incident to football jerseys however this was rather due to the reason that the ways of all of these stories crossed in Ankara.

The most beautiful things I recall from the Gençlerbirliği match were the beautiful songs I heard the first time in a stadium during the half-time period. Especially, Ais Ezhel's  Gençlerbirliği anthem was perfect...  The match was finished but I was still singing the anthem going "Red-Black, here is Ankara". You can listen to the anthem at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL4u0JWjoJI

Manchester

I am very excited since we shall play a match in Europe for the first time after many years.  It is easy to say, the Champions League, i.e the league of our mothers. In our last participation in the champions league, we had said farewell  to the league by being eliminated by Steau Bucharest in the season 2008-2009. There is nothing to be sad  about.;As the sports commentator Bilgin Gökberk has said, you have to be the coach of Milano before being dismisses from there. This means that first you have to participate in the champions league in order to be eliminated from it.  

Lots which have been waited with excitement were drawnt and we were included in the quadripartite group together with Manchester United (alias Manu) Cluj and Braga. This meant that you will read my articles about Cluj (Romania) and Braga (Portugal). We had already gone to Romania for the matches with Steau Bucharest and Dinamo Bucharest. Male fans  have a special interest in countries like Romania besides Ukraine and Estonia, I don’t know why.    

I had went to Lesabon for he match in which we defeated Benfica 2-0. Greetings to Ümit Ozat because we had defeated Benfica in Benfica.

Manchester United is one of the indispensable teams of the Champions League. Is it possible to think otherwise? Because the team is  coached by Sir Alexander Ferguson for 23 years. Recently he took the field for the 1000. Leagur match in front of his team. Even in Turkey, which tries to become a football country, a coach was deemed to be successful for having coached a club team for a period of 5 years and  was appointed as the coach of the national team. This shows that we have a long distance to go ahead.

We slowly departed  early in the morning on September 18, Wednesday for the flight at 14:45. Team members come altogether by bus  to the away matches  and they wear one example uniforms. Previously people wore suits while going to matches in Europe and I think that was more beautiful. Team members  go to European matches wearing sportswear. It seems that Sarar does spear no expenses anymore. 

We understood that we had missed the excitement in Europe. For that reason I saw that many new faces have filled our giant  Boeing 777 airplane besides those with whom I was already familiar with. 

The flight lasted 4 hours but it was very comfortable. The feeling of excitement with the match was beginning to take hold of all of us when we landed in Manchester.  To be true, my luck which you will remember from my previous articles was not with me this time. We, the miserables who are citizens of the European Union waited on the long queu while those among us who had foreign passports easily passed through the passport queu on which we waited for one hour.

When we finally got rid of the polite English torture and threw ourselves into the bus, I noticed that I had forgotten to take my baggage with me.

When a friend of mine asked me where my baggage was, I tried to give a pretext for my dazedness by saying that I generally don’t  take any baggage or didn’t take any baggage  this time for it was a one-day trip but actually I had forgotten to take it with me. After spending half an hour to seek the baggage,  we could reach the icecold streets of Manchester only at about 17:00. Temperature was approximately 10 C. In other words it was icecold. I decided to go to the training of the team since there was nothing to do in this boirng english city. We went to the training, which took place at 19:00 in the evening both to see Old Trafford stadium and  perceive the atmosphere of the team. The training which was closed to fans and open to the press for only 10 minutes lasted approximately 30 minutes but we couldn’t stay there longer any way even if it lasted longer since the weather was very cold.  

Training passed very cheerfully possibly because we had said “let the atmosphere of the team be good  however bad the weather might be”

From my previous experiences I already knew that the pre-match training could give a quite good idea about the match that would take place the next day. I am sure this time again, the team has a complete self confidence I can’t know whether we shall defeat or shall  be defeated but we shall struggle in this match very hardly!

Summer heat in Antalya 3 days ago, a sweet breeze at the endf of summer in İstanbul and winter here.  My body is naturally dead tired. I found my self laid down at full length on the bed at 10:00 while I had wanted to go out after taking a rest after coming from the training. The next day I woke up early and went downstairs  for breakfast but I noticed that I had forgotten my key inside the room. I felt at odds with my friends, who asked me whether I was in love, because of their failure to understand my love for Galatasaray. Never mind.

Three was just a feast of yellow and red in the city during the match day. Fans of Galatasaray who had came from various cities of Turkey and Europe had filled the streets.

Matches of the champion league which we are used to begin at 21:45 in Turkey begins at 19:45 in England because of the difference of time. For that reason I came early to Old Trafford stadium which is not as beautiful our stadium but is an unbelievably good organized one.

Our fans were unbelievable. They never stopped shouting throughout 90 minutes beginning from the pre-match hours. Even in Istanbul the fans pauses for a while after giving away a goal and then they continue supporting their team.This time we really didn’t shut up even for one minute. It was wonderful to sing the march titled “Dağ başını duman almış” which gives us a great excitation while singing it especially in the matches in the European tournaments.

We lost the match 1-0 but I think that we struggled very good. We played with our heads hold high in a manner worth of Galatasaray and we have led those who had missed us in Europe, watch a beautiful football. What is most important is that the  team must always struggle in this way and it is not important for us whether they defeat or are defeated.

At the end of the match we went to the airport by buses and gat on the airplane for returning to our warm and beautiful country. Our airplane which departed at 02:30 Turkish time landed in İstanbul after a flight of 3, 5 hours. I, who can normally sleep in the airplane, felt very tired  when I got off the airplane because I couldn’t sleep all along the flight and the idea of taking photographs of the scenes inside the airplane didn’t come to my mind since the spirit of the correspondent inside me which was already not quite strong, has also faller asleep.

I finally obtained the team uniform, which was promised to me and I had mentioned in my previous article on Antalya. The uniform of Selçuk İnan, who was the star of the last year and a monument of stability and won the favour of the fans without exception with his behavior  both inside and outside the football pitch has proved to be worth of having the honour of being placed near the uniforms of Arda, Baros and Hasan Şaş. I hope that Selçuk obtains captain’s armband that he deserved since last year as soon as possible.