Yabancı Soccer Hooligans in Constantinople

Rough-looking Beşiktaş hooligans
near the Stadium











Beşiktaş fans Frances and Orin went to the game last night to see their heroes take on Bursaspor, the lowly "Greens" from provincial Bursa. Beşiktaş, with its trademark black and white uniforms, is a mix of Turkish players and a couple of Rent-A-Brazilians coached by the great former French international Tigana. The team is medicore, and although Tigana is close to 50, it might not be a bad idea to suit him up.

Frances's friends had warned her it was "dangerous" to go to a Beşiktaş game. We did, after all, watch some scattered gratuitous hooligan rock-throwing at the police and bad behavior on the news after the last game. But Frances and Orin pushed their way through the various police gates and crowd control, prison-like checkpoints and barricades with the rest of the mostly young, male, and only mildly chemically altered crowd. A few derogatory mutterings of yabancı, or foreigner, were heard from the police, who perhaps patted Orin down with a bit of unnecessary vigor and for a moment seemed ready to haul him off in the paddy-wagon as a suspiciously un-Turkish, insufficently-Ataturk adoring character.

Bursaspor, the visiting team, was hospitably greeted by a shower of bottles and the hostile whistling of 30,000 people, which Frances believed might be used by Peter Jackson as the sound-effects for the Nazgul in some future Lord of the Rings sequel. The visitors warmed up packed close in the middle of the field to remain out of the projectile flinging range of the Beşiktaş supporters, who on this night did not light any trash cans on fire or set off in rockets in the stands as their sometime custom. Ringing the field were police in full riot gear with large German shephards. We wondered how it might feel to be a Bursaspor player -- with the knowledge that only the police stood between them and having the large, restless, spoiling-for-a-fight crowd storm the field to, at best, beat them to a pulp.

Frances and Orin enjoyed the excellent chanting of the Beşiktaş supporters, who we agreed are more than the equal of our own Cameron Crazies. Our lack of understanding of Turkish was a handicap, but some of the songs sung by the fans were adulatory anthems to their beloved "black-and-whites." Others appeared to be directed at the visiting side; Frances and Orin's best guess was that they might be roughly translated as "Death to Bursaspor."

Bursapor scored the first goal and the half ended with the visitors leading 1 to 0. This turn of events was not warmly greeted by the Beşiktaş faithful. They took aim from the stands at the exiting Bursaspor players -- and the referees, who were naturally to blame for bias against Beşiktaş side. Full one-liter bottles of water seemed to be the favored projectile, and Bursaspor players showed considerable agility in dodging them. Helpfully, the Turkish police formed a Myrmidon-like tunnel with their plastic riot shield to give the visiting side a chance to get off the field.

The home team stormed back with three goals in the second half, and the appeased Beşkitaş faithful did not even throw any rocks at the police when the game was over.

Frances and Orin had an excellent time.