So I type from a hotel room in Cannakale around 300km south of Istanbul. I work as a military historian and am nearing the end of a couple of weeks walking tour looking at the Gallipoli campaign in 1915.
The footy culture out here is that you follow one of four Istanbul teams, Galatasaray, Fenerbace, Besitskas or too a lesser extentTrasponspor.
The scenario tonight is the final game of the Liga 1 season pits Fenerbace at home to Galatasaray, the home side were a point behind and on 80 mins the Galatasaray skipper was sent off...they hung on and won the league, despite being so far away from the stadium (300km) it has gone absolutely mental, at one end of the street I have the red half letting off flares and drumming and singing, around 5000 of them, at the other end the blue half are having a running street battle with the local plod who are firing baton rounds and cs cannisters about the place. I have most of my group (4missing) in the hotel on lock down but it could be a long night.
Puts the Wendies promotion cup in some sort of context, watching the news in my room this is happening the length and breadth of the country out here!
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hope you find the other four soon.
Imagine Celtic Vs Rangers and times it by 10.
Why would a tour of the Dardanelles find itself 300km south of Istanbul?
Trabsonspor is roughly 700 miles from Istanbul.
Besiktas supporters. Impressive:
Danepak, its the claret and blue team that are number four, have I got the wrong name?
Ah but how many do they take away?
A couple of years ago I was on a flight from Istanbul to Riga with the Galalatasaray women's basketball team. It was quite amusing to watch them all try to squeeze themselves into ordinary plane seats. Also interesting to see how few of them were actually Turks.
From what I've always understood, there are only three big teams in Istanbul (Galatasaray, Fenerbache and Besiktas).
Trabzonspor is considered as one of the top 4 clubs in Turkey though, based on the number of championships/cups they've won.