With all of the excitement surrounding the Turkish Super League championship race, it’s hard pressed that a promotion in the lower levels of the Turkish football structure could cause a commotion. Normally promotions in the lower divisions doesn’t give anyone cause for celebration, nor does it got noticed, as the Super League take precedence above all else. But perhaps one promotion which happened last weekend might be compared to the mythical phoenix rising from the ashes and maybe return to prominence not seen in almost a decade.
One team in the Aegean port city of Izmir was once known as a contender. This club once upon a time made Turkish history. A club which had fallen on hard times has almost come all the way back from the brink of obscurity. They have perhaps one of, if not the best, local support in Turkey. In a country where a great majority of the football fans in the country support the Istanbul big three clubs, one club can count on overwhelming local support, even attracting 30,000 fans to the Izmir Ataturk stadium last weekend, for a match which guaranteed them promotion to the Bank Asya First Division, one tier away from the Turkish Super League. That club is Göztepe.
Many people have never heard of Göztepe, at least outside of Turkey. But they were once one of the most formidable clubs from Anatolia. They are last of their kind, an authentic neighborhood club located in the Güzelyalı neighborhood of Izmir. Founded in 1925, Göztepe merged with Izmirspor in 1937. With some Izmirspor supporters against the move, they broke off from the now renamed Doğanspor, and founded Ateşspor in 1938. In 1939, both clubs reverted back to their original names, Doğanspor back to Göztepe and Ateşspor back to Izmirspor.
Göztepe’s greatest success came between 1963 and 1971. Led by manager Adnan Suvari, Göztepe finished in the top four spots four times, with their highest place a third place finish in the 1970-71 season. Names from that time period such as Ali Artuner, Mehmet “Junior” Işıkal, Çağlayan Derebaşı, Hüseyin Yazıcı, Mehmet “Senior” Aydın, Nevzat “English” Guzelırmak, Nihat Yayöz, Ertan Öznur, Fevzi Zemzem, Gürsel Aksel, and Halil Kiraz are still remembered fondly by Göztepe fans. They won the Turkish Cup twice, winning back to back Turkish Cups in the 1968-69 and 1969-70 seasons. But some of their greatest success came in Europe.
Göztepe has the distinction of being the first Turkish club to reach the semifinals of a European competition. This happened in the 1968-69 season, where Göztepe reaches the semifinals of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, the forerunner to the UEFA Cup (now the Europa League). They had also reached the quarterfinals of the UEFA Cup Winners Cup in the 1969-70 season. Although they have never won the Turkish league, they were the standard of European success until Galatasaray won the UEFA Cup in the 1999-2000 season.
Hard times fell upon the club in 2002. Göztepe had suffered through immense financial problems. With an inability to resolve their outstanding debt, Göztepe were barred from signing new players, setting the club into free fall. The club would be relegated four times in the next five seasons, starting with relegation from the Turkish Super league in the 2002-2003 season. They reached the abyss in 2007, when the club was relegated to the Izmir Super Amateur league. In 2007, Göztepe was sold in an auction to the Istanbul based conglomerate Altınbaş Group. The club’s new owner, businessman İmam Altınbaş, vowed to take Göztepe back to the Turkish Super League. After failing to achieve promotion back into the professional league in the 2007-08 season, Göztepe merged with another Izmir club, Aliağa Belediyespor, and took their place in the TFF Third Division, or the fourth tier of the Turkish professional football structure in July of 2008.
It would get better for Göztepe from there. After achieving promotion to the TFF Second Division in the 2008-09 season, with three weeks to spare, they would play in the Second Division for two years. In the second division of the Turkish professional football structure, 36 clubs are divided into two groups of 18, named Red and White (after the colors of the Turkish national flag), with the division winners gaining automatic promotion. Placed in the White Group of the TFF Second Division this season, Göztepe wrapped up promotion to the Bank Asya First Division with one week to spare, clinching the White Group this past weekend with a 2-0 win over Çankırı Belediyespor and a four point gap in the standings over Bandırmaspor.
Göztepe is almost back to top flight football in Turkey. However, they are still one tier away from the bright lights of the Turkish Super League. An additional wrinkle that makes this recent promotion special is that an old Izmir derby will be resurrected in the Bank Asya First Division next season. Göztepe’s main rivals are Karşıyaka. If a football fan outside of Turkey thought that the Istanbul big 3 derbies, particularly the Fenerbahçe-Galatasaray derby, were crazy, the Göztepe-Karşıyaka derby can take the usual passion and insanity of Turkish football fans to another level. The two clubs have a particular distinction that had made the Guinness Book of World Records. On May 16, 1981, Göztepe and Karşıyaka played a Turkish Second Division (currently the Bank Asya First Division) match that attracted 80,000 spectators to the Izmir Ataturk Stadium, setting a record then of the largest attendance for a non-top flight football match ever.
The promotion has given some vindication for Göztepe’s current manager Özcan Kızıltan. After leading Bucaspor to promotion to the Turkish Super League last season, Kızıltan was let go in favor of Bulent Uygun during the offseason. Kızıltan, a former Fenerbahçe trainer, has now led two clubs to promotions in back to back seasons. With Bucaspor now guaranteed to head back down to the Bank Asya First Division for next season, Kızıltan might look to exact some revenge on Bucaspor next season for letting him go.
With promotion to the Bank Asya First Division guaranteed for this season, Göztepe have achieved something nearly miraculous. For a club that fell all the way to the Turkish amateur leagues, this is perhaps the biggest achievement yet for Göztepe since their fall began in 2002. Now with the Super League in sight, Göztepe will look to keep the climb going, and eventually return to the Turkish Super League for the first time since the 2002-2003 season. It’s been a long hard road for Göztepe for the last few years. But now they are almost back from the abyss, and this rise of the phoenix story could possibly see a once great club return to where it once belonged.
ATA DİZDAR
