More Turkish Delight ?

[Paul]

Blackburn Rovers have been drawn against Gençlerbirligi from Turkey in today's UEFA Cup First Round Draw.

The first leg will be played in w/c 22nd September, most probably on Wednesday 24th, with the return leg two weeks later in w/c 13th October, again the most likely day for the game being Wednesday 15th October.

For the full draw fans should visit UEFA Official Site

[asoe]

Good evening Blackburn supporters. On behalf of all Genclerbirligi fans I would like to extend best wishes for this quite interesting tie. Although it is fairly simple to reach our club's official site I strongly recomend you to click  www.alkaralar.com address which belongs to independent Genclerbirligi supporters association. We also have an English section in the forum and some of our members are multilingual and I bet that you may be able to establish a lasting friendship with alkaralar ( virtually it means red and blacks in Turkish ).

English football is extremely popular in Turkey as it might be expected. According to my humble observation Arsenal is the most popular English team around the country but there is also a fairly strong Liverpool fan base all around. Man. Utd is well known but not very sympatetic to the crowds and their supporters are tagged as  " glory hunters ", but we have to admit that they are so successful.

I think as an initial article this is enough for the time being. Please don't hesitate to ask questions regarding my club and Ankara. We will be more than happy to see you guys here in Ankara and show the famous gentilmenly conduct of Genclerbirligi fans as well as the real Turkish hospitality. Good luck to you all. This Sunday we will play against the most Internationalized team of Turkey, Galatasaray in Istanbul. It will be a real testing game for us and see what will happen.

Hoscakalin ( goodbye )

[asoe]

Good evening Blackburn supporters. On behalf of all Genclerbirligi fans I would like to extend best wishes for this quite interesting tie. Although it is fairly simple to reach our club's official site I strongly recomend you to click  www.alkaralar.com address which belongs to independent Genclerbirligi supporters association. We also have an English section in the forum and some of our members are multilingual and I bet that you may be able to establish a lasting friendship with alkaralar ( virtually it means red and blacks in Turkish ).

English football is extremely popular in Turkey as it might be expected. According to my humble observation Arsenal is the most popular English team around the country but there is also a fairly strong Liverpool fan base all around. Man. Utd is well known but not very sympatetic to the crowds and their supporters are tagged as  " glory hunters ", but we have to admit that they are so successful.

I think as an initial article this is enough for the time being. Please don't hesitate to ask questions regarding my club and Ankara. We will be more than happy to see you guys here in Ankara and show the famous gentilmenly conduct of Genclerbirligi fans as well as the real Turkish hospitality. Good luck to you all. This Sunday we will play against the most Internationalized team of Turkey, Galatasaray in Istanbul. It will be a real testing game for us and see what will happen.

Hoscakalin ( goodbye )

[asoe]

Dear Rovers fans,

On behalf of entire Alkaralar ( virtually it means red and blacks in Turkish ) ( and it also is an independent supporters association of Genclerbirligi ) I would like to extend best wishes.

Genclerbirligi is a modest football club of our capital Ankara and so far became champions in 1941 and 1946 in addition to our FA titles in 1980'ies and 2002.

Our fan base is also quite modest in comparison with the popular Istanbul teams, however we are as affectionate as everyone for our club.

GB. was established in 1923 by the students of a major school in Ankara ( Ankara Ataturk Lisesi ) and developed rapidly throughout the last 80 years. Our clup owns a state of art type of training facilities in the middle of the town.

I recomend all of you not to stick to the official site of our club but also enter  to communicate with the fans. There is an English section of our site as well. Some fans are multilingual and it is easy to communicate with them in English.

On the other hand GB. is a family club and its fans are famous with their gentlemenly conduct. If you visit Ankara a little bit earlier than our game we will be more than happy to arrange a 7 a side football game amongst us. I firmly beleive that it will help a lot to establish a lasting friendship between the two sets of supporters.

The last but not the least well done against Chelski!!, you are still unbeaten in Stanford Bridge and it makes happy the Turkish people in general for Arsenal of London is very popular in our country.

Goodby and enjoy your week end.