(A bit long................please disregard if not interested.) Well, we went to Istanbul.
First of all, thanks to all the people who gave me advice on and offlist about our trip. It was much appreciated and very useful. As I did mention in an earlier post, I was pretty reluctant to go and even though I had promised to go with an open mind, I was still a bit negative when we arrived. This feeling persisted for the first day and a half, but I was soon won over by the astonishing beauty of the city and also the unrelenting friendliness of the people. Apart from the obvious reason, I was also down on the place because I love Greece so much, and I was cross with it for being so like Greece but not having ouzo or xoriatiki salads. When I found that cafes in Istanbul also had tavla (backgammon) boards, and also discovered raki, my outlook improved enormously. I was quite determined to answer the many people who asked where I was from by saying "England.......well, Leeds actually." I was expecting looks of sheepish guilt, but was met every time by cheerful faces. Some people even replied "Ah. Leeds United!" without any hint of concern. I fear that the murders are long forgotten over there now. I wasn't spending much time on the internet, but the Cellino appeal decision was due any time, so I did have to check Newsnow every day..............and that was where I discovered that it was actually the 14th anniversary of Chris's & Kevin's deaths while we were there. I really should I suppose have gone up to Taksim Square that day (even though I don't really believe in that kind of nonsense), but I didn't find out until too late in the evening. We did make our way over there the next day though, and it was a pretty horrible experience. It turned out that G***tasaray were playing Fenerbahce that day. All morning, the city had been full of those horrible faux-Bradford City shirts, but when we got to the Square the place was seething with them. It seems that it is a tradition for their fans to congregate in Taksim Square before marching en masse to the stadium. I hope that that is a long-standing tradition and not something which has developed in the last 14 years. Whatever the case, it was extremely unpleasant to see that particular place full of those particular fans...............especially when I saw that several of the more "hard-core" nutters were strutting around covered in fake blood. Again, I hope that, as unsavoury as that is, it is a tradition that dates back to long before April 5th 2000. Normally, I would have reveled in the experience of savouring the atmosphere of a frenzied local derby in a foreign capital (as I have in the past with, eg Al Ahli v Zamalek in Cairo, or PAOK v Aris in Thessaloniki), but not surprisingly I did not enjoy this one. I did consider trying to get my wife and daughter, who were with me, to join me in a defiant burst of "We are Leeds." But I didn't consider it for long. Apart from that afternoon, though, we had nothing but splendid experiences and met nothing but wonderful people in Turkey. _______________________________________________ Leedslist mailing list Info and options: http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist To unsubscribe, email [email protected] John 'Grampa' Sykes Rest In Peace old lad 28th Oct 1938 - 12 Nov 2013 MARCHING ON TOGETHER
