Ankaragücü: A sad stroll through the garden of memories

At the end of the 2024-25 season, despite possessing the league's most valuable roster, Ankaragücü, a long-established pillar of national football, was relegated to the Second League. While we lamented their decline, we found solace in Alkaralar's return to the Super League. We hope they will endure. Those who are too young don't know that in the black-and-white days, when the beautiful game we call football wasn't captive to the television monster, football enthusiasts would flock to the stands to watch their teams. I was there, at perhaps the most beautiful part of the story. Nowadays, the capital city resembles a sleepy city with its artificial fountains, unnecessary overpasses and underpasses, identical soulless shopping malls sprouting from the ground like mushrooms, and sterile housing estates made of concrete jungles. The stands of the historic football temple of my hometown, the city where I was born and raised, would fill up on match days on weekends, transforming into a festival. Ankara 19 Mayıs Stadium would be a place of celebration. Street vendors, meatball vendors, stall vendors, sunflower seed sellers, fans... On match days, children would stream into the stadium, holding their fathers' hands, following in their footsteps. As the teams took the field like firecrackers, a roar would rise from the football temple. Win or lose, Ankara football fans, young and old, would always support their city's team. Even when they were playing in the Second League, the stands would fill hours in advance. On match days, as the sun was just rising over that old stadium, there would be a crowd of garbage collectors, watchmen, and fans. Ankara football fans would never abandon their city's team. Love was unrequited. There were no broadcasting vans or stand groups, but there was the beloved, city-owned slogan, "Suppress Ankaragücü!"

Long before the gray-haired man who wouldn't leave, the mayors who meddled in politics down to the bone for the sake of more votes, the grandstand groups, the Mediterranean evenings, the missionary footballers, the sham congresses, the administrators who made their name through football, the unpleasant mayors, the profiteering fights, the season tickets, the cheerleader commentators, the hormonal municipal teams, there were fans who loved their city, their stadium, and their team unconditionally. There was a deep-rooted sycamore tree there, named after its city. That old stadium had its sound, its scent, a second home that we missed when we were apart, a place we eagerly awaited on weekends to see.

Even though it is far away, it is always in our hearts and with us...

In the past, there was a whole city behind that team, which, like its city, has been defeated by time...

I was there, perhaps at the best part of the story.

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Then the story changed, call it fate or destiny. The mid-90s marked the beginning of the gray-haired man's era. During his 13 years in charge, countless players passed through the club's doors, and nearly thirty managers served. Except for Ersun Yanal's tenure, the club fought to avoid relegation every season, while the devoted fans gradually withdrew from the stands. As fanfare and disputes over profiteering replaced passion, club membership was closed to true fans. Then... Then he must have grown tired of it, because he left. While the joy of the long-overdue departure of the Fenerbahçe congressman, elected by the votes of friends and relatives at the almost annual mock congresses, who repeatedly reiterated that his presidency was a disgrace to the Ankaragücü fans, was still being experienced, the Ankara Mayor, who had failed to achieve the sensation he had hoped for at Ankaraspor, was once again interested in Ankaragücü, this time with his son. Like a suitor for a poor girl, like the unpopular rich man in the neighborhood. Just as we were preparing to celebrate the club's centennial, what was left to celebrate? The debt had reached the throat, the club's coffers were empty, and creditors were knocking on the door. With no way out, the long-established plane tree was waiting for a buyer.

In reality, if Gökçek had supported all Ankara teams equally, no one would have objected, but this wasn't about appropriation, it was about ownership. No one would have asked why public money was being funneled to football teams. No one would have asked how this debt was incurred. No one would have found it strange that those who had been at loggerheads until recently had come together. Ethical and moral values in Turkish football had long since been shattered. In the Middle East, where there was no independent oversight in any aspect of life, this lack of oversight was a curse for football clubs. Over time, everyone who came and went was left wanting, and as the long-established plane tree was slowly toppled, only the colors of the past would remain.

At the end of the 2011-12 season, they were relegated along with Samsunspor and Manisaspor, having managed only two wins in 34 matches. Many in a footballing landscape obsessed with Istanbul's three teams didn't care about their decline. But the downward spiral wasn't over. Between a mayor and a club president who had clung to his position for so many years, Haris was left in the hands of whoever was holding him accountable during dark times of financial difficulties and transfer bans. When he climbed to the 2nd League in the 2015-16 season, the long-awaited end to a tumultuous story finally arrived. Then the resurgence began, and when he climbed two divisions in two seasons and was promoted to the Süper Lig, his fans rejoiced. In May 2018, we celebrated his return in this column again. "I haven't been to his matches for a while; a bit of resentment, a bit of a limitation of being away. Still, let's not make this a piece of mourning or a reckoning with the past; let's wholeheartedly celebrate his return," I said. Our Deniz had just turned five, and I bought him the most stylish Ankaragücü jersey.

•••

The new season will soon begin, and football will be available in your home for a whopping monthly fee, and once again, the rows between three Istanbul teams will begin on giant screens. While lamenting the past in the quiet, unseen corners of football, Ankara's historic and distinguished yellow-and-navy club will relive the battles for seats, the spiral of debt, and the transfer bans like the worse refrain of a bad story. With the price of never learning from the past, of never achieving institutionalization, with the burden of debt, transfer bans, the fan groups, and the notion of fandom that lights torches in the stands and sees fighting outside the stadium as valid. With so much lived experience, with the never-ending struggle with itself amidst stolen time, with its constant bleeding like an unhealed wound, with its inability to find peace. Like its city, it has changed, lost its essence, its soul, its identity. Like its city, it is defeated by time. Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad, whose life was cut short in a traffic accident, wrote in his poem "Rebirth," "My lot is a melancholic stroll through the garden of memories." I believe Ankaragücü will always hold that sadness in the hearts of those who know the past.