ANKARAGUCU - REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

Greetings Kankas and Kankies.

Well............ I can think of 3 for starters ! First up, ANKARAGUCU won for the 2nd week in a row (is this a record ??!!). Secondly, Musafa Ozkan is back in the team to steady the ship after Ceyhun jumped ship a few weeks ago !! Oh yes............ and Bebbe is back doing what he is supposed to do, ie, score goals !

Saturday afternoon, and it was...............

ANKARAGUCU 2 Gaziantep 1

Unfortunately, it was another non-attendance by the kankas so I have relied on Ozgur Sahiner of Turkey's finest (The Hurriyet) for the details.

Prior to the match, Hikmet Bey was reported as saying that it is now only important for ANKARAGUCU to win and the subject of playing good football will be secondary !

Wise words when Antep come calling, especially after they managed to put CimBom to the sword last weekend !!

Antep started the match the stronger of the 2 teams and ANKARAGUCU were wobbling at the back when Antep took the lead in the 15th minute through Kirita. At this point there was little cohesion in ANKARAGUCU's play, and a few narrow escapes due to misunderstandings between Serkan in goal and his defenders, and woeful finishing by Antep, spared the blushes and further punishment.

However, all that was to change with the long overdue introduction of Mustafa for Murat just before half time. Almost immediately Mustafa scored the equaliser much to the relief of the supporters.

Into the 2nd half and the ANKARAGUCU midfield of Mustafa, Tita and Yordanov took control of the match - Hikmet Bey's plan post-Ceyhun appears to be working at last !

Half-way through the 2nd half Bebbe bagged the winning goal.

So, a valuable 3 points against a team of Antep's reputation is most welcome and moves ANKARAGUCU up the table into 10th position and 9 points above 3rd bottom Denizli who will host ANKARAGUCU next weekend.

All the best from a smiling Eski Kanka Jim