Special Broadcasting Service, Australia
March 14 2009

The Ankara embassy incident

14 March 2009 | 0:00 – By Matthew Hall

At Turkish football clubs everyone is involved. Right down to the tea man.

The man at the British Embassy gate was not too happy to see me. Or,
maybe he actually was because the dumb question I asked of him went
some way to alleviate his fear that the taxi I’d just climbed out of
was not a mobile bomb.

It was raining in Ankara last Tuesday night, which didn’t
help. Neither did the fact our taxi driver was unsure exactly where
the British Embassy was.

(Note to Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish readers: In Turkish, the
British Embassy is known as the "English Embassy". Sorry. I don’t know
why this is.)

The big building behind concrete barriers and a barbed wire fence kind
of gave it away a bit but the security control booth, like the bridge
of big ship looking out over all approaches, gave this place a stamp
of seriousness.

Our taxi stopped with a skid right in front. This was not the greatest
idea in a place where bombs and attacks on foreign banks and embassies
is a reality. So I got out and, in my best Australian accent, asked
how I could get into the Red Lion, a bar attached to the embassy.

Red alert to amber alert.

This potential intruder was just an Aussie after a cheap beer.

As it turned out, Tuesday night is darts night at the Red Lion as
locals ` expats, foreign embassy staff, and actual real live Turks `
compete in a local league. Darts in Ankara? Who knew?

But the real purpose of this mission was, rather than terrorism or
darts, to meet one of the people behind the Round Ball in Ankara blog,
dedicated to two of Ankara’s teams Ankaragucu and Genclerbirligi.

Genclerbirligi boast three Australians in its squad ` Bruce Djite,
James Troisi, and Mile Jedinak. The club’s officials love Australians.

The General Manager would not shut up about Josip Skoko, the former
Socceroo who was a key member of the team during its famous UEFA Cup
run five years ago.

"Send us more," he said.

In over a decade covering Australia’s national team, the most
hospitality I’ve received from Football Federation Australia has been
a run at the leftovers from lunch during a training camp in Holland.

Yet Gencler hospitality, for pretty much a stranger, included an
invitation to eat a four-course meal with the team after watching a
training session. In this business, that’s unheard of. Especially at
four o’clock in the afternoon.

This was my second visit to Ankara in nine months. Turkey’s modern day
founder Ataturk, or at least his imposing mausoleum and the
accompanying official (debated by Greeks and Armenians) version of
regional history, cast a long shadow over my first visit.

The escort for this visit was more benign but as ever-present.

Nothing gets done in Turkey without chay, the local tea. And so it was
at Genclerbirligi’s cubist club offices.

Forget Djite, Troisi, or Jedinak. The most important employee at the
club was the chay man, who popped up at every and any opportunity.

On arrival, mid-interview, on the training pitch, post-interview.

"Chay?"

If we sent him to the British Embassy, they might relax a bit.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress