i had a nostalgic sort of day today. i was stuck at work otherwise i would have got down to the 19 mayis stadium to cheer on ankaragucu. so i pulled out my little radio and tuned in to trt radio for their call of the day's matches.
i was on my own and decided to crack open a beer, never that difficult a decision, and the memories of my childhood came flooding back.
those memories were of weekends playing around in the backyard with cousins while the women were stuck in the kitchen making salads and the men were standing around the bbq drinking beers, listening to the rugby league and complaining about how the chairman of our beloved balmain tigers was an idiot.
today all i had was the radio and beers. no bbq and no wife making me a salad. but the nostalgia was definitely there.
listening to football on the radio is an interesting experience, confusing but fun at the same time. the first thing that made it interesting was the fact that trt had to cover five matches at the same time. this meant crossing from match to match to match. at most one match would get about one-and-a-half minutes coverage before off they went to another game. then there was the fact that while i can understand turkish pretty well, boy oh boy, these guys talk so bloody fast at times i hardly had a clue who was attacking.
as far as i can remember from the coverage of rugby league back in sydney, when there were a few matches on at the same time they would give one match a few minutes coverage and then cross-over to the next match where quite often you would be told that a try or two had been scored.
being football and not all that many goals scored in general they don't do it like that here. as soon as a goal is scored they cut someone off and head straight to the action. this wasn't all that difficult in the first half of today's matches, only two goals were scored in all five matches, but the second half had my head spinning.
this is all a very very long way for me to point out that genclerbirligi lost their 234th match in a row today away to konyaspor.
konya 2 - genclerbirligi 1
from the bits i picked up from the radio. sandro again was up front in place of okan ozturk. mehmet cakir had a hard shot on goal in the 17th which came off the defence.
blah, blah, blah about other matches.
jesus makes a brilliant save.
blah, blah, blah about other matches.
cakir takes a free kick and whacks it into the post.
half time and the commentator said it wasn't the fastest of matches. most probably both sides were scared of a loss.
second half and i understood even less of what was going on.
another good save from jesus... or was that by the konya keeper?
cakir takes a corner and isaac promise, this blog's favourite footballer in all of anatolia, rises high at the far post to score. 0-1.
i lost it for a bit at this point and the next time they crossed to our match konyaspor had scored. i have no idea how. 1-1.
getting towards the end of all five matches and things were going crazy. then mrs. oz kanka walked in with little oz kanka and i missed the fact that koya had scored in the last minute.
when i was a kid the balmain tigers rarely won and so my nostalgia today was complete.
anyway, the situation is getting a bit scary.
we are in 10th position but just three points ahead of the gaziantepspor who are in the relegation zone. three more matches to go and surely just one win would be enough to keep us up. is it?
