hooray! mid-december and gencler finally win an away match. not against some middling team but against trabzon. all good stuff except for the ko time.
i ranted last week and i'm ranting again today. last night's mid-week match kicked off at 5:45 pm. is it any wonder that the stadium just outside trabzon was empty?
trabzonspor 1 - 2 genclerbirligi
i was volunteered to become the bar manager at the red lion club so last night i headed down there to do some work and to watch bits and pieces of the trabzon-gencler match. the sound was down but the club certainly knew it when we scored.
things didn't start off so brilliantly with trabzon in complete control, especially in the midfield, but somehow or other we managed to score first.
before that there was a clear handball from a trabzonspor player. of course, neither the referee nor the linesman saw it.
but anyway, it was enigmatic hursut who was the hero for this one. as we have seen so often, he had the ball down the right wing near the touch line, and a defender in front of him blocking any chance for a cross. he takes the ball slightly to the left (with his left foot mind you), defender goes with him, and then flicks it through the defender, follows it up and sends in a perfect cross to an unmarked soner who headed it home.
lovely stuff and trabzon upped the ante but thanks to some great defending, especially from aykut, and with some luck we managed to hold out till half time. possession at this stage was something like 65 percent to 35 percent in trabzon's favour.
second half and trabzon kept on coming but gencler stretched the lead when herve tum sent a great ball to yasin who shot from outside the box and perfectly placed it in the bottom left-hand of the goal. much shouting and celebrations.
trabzon upped it again but ultimately it was the referee who had to gift it to them when he gave a penalty for handball.
it was no handball. it was obvious from the very start and the tv replays made it even more obvious. aykut even took his jersey off to show the welt mark where the ball had hit him. yellow card for aykut and trabzon scored.
then it was about half-an-hour of defending. attack after attack from trabzon, at least two shots hit the post, desperate defence, keeper ramazan making saves left, right and centre, scary scary stuff but finally the whistle blew.
an away win against trabzon. i'd say that we were very lucky, but at the same time we took our chances and trabzon didn't. got to put it in the back of the net boys.
) 
