it was a wonderful day for football. the sun was out, spring had finally hit ankara but as far as i know the only person who actually went to the football today was "he who thinks he can play darts" kanka emin, and the chances of getting a report from him are next to nothing.
and so you all have to do with me, cobbling together the useless reports from the anatolia news agency.
but as i said it was a beautiful sunday in ankara and along with a few ring-ins, smart arse yanky kanka dave, mrs. smart arse yanky kanka, yet to get a name but still a season ticket holder for ankaragucu vicky and myself were all enjoying ourselves at a bbq in honour of something or other australian.
the bbq was held at a friend's place and guess who the neighbour is.... none other than this blog's best friend melih gokcek, the mayor of ankara and the chairman of the team that ahmet turgut's brother-in-law coaches.
we didn't actually see melih today (perhaps he was making up the numbers for ankaraspor) but this at least meant that he didn't turn off the electricty as he did last time i was at this particular place when the turkeys were being cooked on christmas day.
with the electricity on and the beers aflowing it was my duty to inform the asssembled guests of all the scores as the mobile beep beeped.
smart arse yankee kanka was of course very pleased with my report that ankaragucu had beaten konya 3-0. i was too. but the next line on my text message was that genclerbirligi had lost 2-0 away to erciyes. much swearing ensued.
if now you may have gotten the idea that i don't actually intend to describe any of the matches today you will be right. but i will go slightly into the mathematics of what it all means.
number one. ankaragucu's victory pretty much saves them from being relegated (eski kanka, i assume that as you won't be relegated i'm allowed to use the word "relegated").
number two... and three etc. kayseri lost yesterday (thank god) but trabzon managed to win and besiktas could only manage a draw today against gaziantepspor (titter, titter). in other words, genclerbirligi stay in fourth, still in line for a uefa spot.
but bloody hell. we should have won today and gone into third.
amazingly though, the genclerbirligi coach mesut bakkal must have finally found this blog because for what is probably the first match this season he didn't start with isaac promise. he did come on in the 46th minute though and as far as i can see he did nothing. no change there then.
i'm not sure yet what the matches are next week, but i'm going anyway. check this space for more info.
