Adanaspor -- Sampiyon!

This past Saturday, Liam and I packed our flares and headed downtown to take in the last Turkish B Lig match of the season. On the line for Adanaspor was a chance to move up to the second level of Turkish soccer, the Lig A. All the Orange and White needed was a win -- but with a win and a loss by Adana Demirspor (both Liam and my first true Turkish soccer love), Adanaspor would win the league . . . and the right to fire guns into the air while honking and yelling "Sampiyon!" from their Soviet-era cars.

We entered the stadium -- which seats 19,000, although some of the actual seats are missing, having been ripped up and thrown on to the field by upset fans in the last few weeks -- about two hours early. We settled in as the fans warmed up their chants and removed their flares from wherever they hide them to get pass security. While not nearly as rabid as the Demirspor fans, the Adanaspor supporters were nonetheless determined to see their club promoted and showed up en masse. When their heroes entered the pitch about a half hour before the match started, the fans went crazy and started chanting "Sampiyon, sampiyon!" A bit premature perhaps . . . at least to us closeted Demirspor fans.

After wasting half a dozen chances in the opening minutes -- prompting Liam to complain, "This match has NO excitement" -- Adanaspor finally scored in the 25th minute, sending the fans into delirium. Liam remarked, "Now THAT'S excitement" and started to join in the chants. The smoke from all of the flares had hardly dissipated, however, before the opposition (Pendikspor, a team from Istanbul) tied the score with a cracking goal that the Adanaspor keeper had no chance of saving. The half ended 1-1.

The start of the second half was delayed a good 5-10 minutes when the fans across the stadium from us threw rolls of cash register tape on to the field, blanketing a quarter of the pitch with white and yellow paper. This became a trend and an annoyance -- after each goal, Adanaspor substitution, or moderately impressive play by the Orange and White, cash register tape would rain on the field. Anyway, Adanaspor and Pendikspor traded goals in the opening 15 minutes of the second half, before the home team knocked in a corner to go ahead 3-2.

With all of the delays resulting from the paper cleanup, no one knew how much time remained -- in soccer, the only official scorekeeper is the referee, so the running time on the scoreboard is merely an estimate. When we reached 90 minutes, the scoreboard operator simply turned off the clock and all 19,000 fans waited on pins and needles for the referee to blow the final whistle. By this time, word had spread through the stands that Demirspor had lost 2-1 to their archrivals Mersin. The chants of "Sampiyon! Sampiyon!" began in earnest, but the extra time dragged on. We had to wait about 15 minutes -- an extraordinarily long time. As the extra time wore on, the fans whistled at the ref (they don't boo here; instead, the fans let out a high-pitched whistle) and yelled lots of Turkish obscenities. I'm not exactly sure what they said, but I think I heard something about the ref's mother and a stray dog . . . I'm not sure, though.

The referee wasn't listening -- he simply refused to end the match, which was brave of him because had Pendikspor scored and tied the game during extra time, he very likely would be in the bottom of the Seyhan River right now. Fortunately for him and all our Adanaspor friends, the Orange and White grabbed a fourth goal and put the match out of reach. Shortly after helping clean up the resulting cash register tape, the referee blew the final whistle and the fans went nuts.

While sad that Demirspor blew it and now will be promoted only if they win an 8-team tournament, Liam and I were thrilled that at least one of the Adana teams will be playing in the Lig A next year. That means going to more matches together -- and witnessing more flare-lighting, more paper-throwing, and more of Liam's disappointment that we'll be drinking the water instead of throwing the water bottles at the opposing fans. And yes, we honked and shouted "Sampiyon!" all the way home.