bumbling along in the nether regions of the league meant a win on sunday for genclerbirligi was needed, at least to allow us a bit of breathing room. in the end, it was easy.
manisaspor 0 - 3 genclerbirligi
having used up all my family capital by going to the red lion on saturday to watch the india-sri lanka world cup final, mrs. oz kanka threatened to chop off certain bits of my anatomy if i didn't join her shopping at one of the 25 dozen malls that have popped up in ankara in the last few years.
stroppily i trudged off as we checked out shoes and other unnecessary products of the repressive capitalist system and it was only after i bribed little oz kanka to start complaining that he was starving (i already knew that we had heaps of food at home and thus a sidetrip to the so-called food mall was out of the question) that we managed to get out at exactly 2pm.
radio on to 93.3 and peep, peep.
nothing much happening and then at about 10 minutes in: jedinak takes a free kick, ball goes into the box, announcer gets excited, ball finds aykut's head and heads goalward, announcer gets crazy, keeper makes great save, oz kanka slams on the brakes to avoid hitting car in front, mrs. oz kanka gets mad.
i missed a fair bit as i was bringing the shopping in and so i missed gencler's first goal. watching the replays later it was a good ball from hursut onto the head of jedinak who sent it across the keeper and into the corner.
i quickly finished my lunch, bid fairwell and jumped into a taxi down to the beer bus in time for the second half. it was at this stage i learnt that one of the manisa players had been sent off. it was obvious really as the gencler players had acres of space.
it was only a matter of time really and it was a mistake from a manisa defender that allowed serkan the easiest of goals. another mistake a few minutes later resulted in pektemek scoring a great goal from the edge of the box.
it was all too easy and with more than half-an-hour left in the match the stadium went quiet as the manisa fans streamed out in disgust.
no disgust for us. three-nil is a good result and makes life avoiding the drop so much easier.
) 
