Thanks for reading my short blog from my trip to Samsun in Turkey. This was my first time in Turkey, with Samsun being a city on the northern coast against the Black Sea. The City has a population of 700,000, that increases to 1.35 million when expanded to the Samsun province. Quite a large place for somewhere I never heard of before… Nowhere near Istanbul and the southern coast housing popular holiday destinations for Brits such as Marmaris, Antalya and Bodrum.
Introduction
For recent posts I use a linear write up template that provides information of flights/accommodation, getting around, costs, what I did and didn’t do. I’m not going to do that here, as let’s be honest, likely viewers are never going to go themselves. Therefore, I’ll mix everything up or leave stuff out altogether.
Day Zero – Armenia home
It was a hectic start to the duo of games that will stretch four days. After finishing work on a Friday, the sun was shining in Cardiff and it was a sellout crowd expecting Wales to continue our decent start with the ultimate goal to reach Euro 2024 in Germany next summer.
We lost 4-2, convincingly, to a team 70+ places below us in the world rankings. I’ve thought of a few words to describe the result, perhaps sobering, a wake-up call, but I’m going to stick with embarrassing. Armenia played well but they should not have been allowed to.
Hope suddenly turned to dread playing a much better team in Turkey the other side of the weekend. On the plane over one bloke said “welcome to hell” (referring to the stadium atmosphere I hope). I laughed this off, as he’d obviously never been to Cambrian Road in Newport on a Friday night.
Escaping the stadium as soon as we could, I was lucky to get back to Newport at 10:30pm for a few hours kip before the trip tomorrow.
Day One – Travel to Samsun
Bloody Stansted! As usual for football away trips I went with my friend Peter who was happy to drive for the first leg. Leaving at 6am we arrived at one of my lesser favoured airports in time for our flight to Istanbul. Stansted has a really good airport lounge (and a Spoons) but given that a lot of the crowd were off on proper holidays and the £30 lounge fee, I came prepared with sandwiches. Baggage control is more depressing than a Tory party conference.
The flight to Istanbul (SAW airport not IST) took around four hours. Istanbul was very busy, security had horrible queues, but once in departures there was plenty of cheap food outlets, seating and smoking area. Lucky, as our flight was ultimately delayed by 3 hours (£350 compensation pending I hope), meaning we spent 5 hours altogether here.
We didn’t get to Samsun until just before midnight. And it was absolutely pissing down. Only Wales could play Turkey in June, with the weather worse than back home!
We stayed in a Hampton by Hilton hotel, out of the city but close to the stadium and airport. The hotel was as expected for a 4*. What initially was meant to be a quick £3 beer turned in to over half a dozen talking to strangers-turned-friends, Tim and Tom. Bed at 5am local time. A long 21 hour day with an hour nap!
Day Two – Exploring Samsun
Believe me when I say that I tried A LOT to find some touristy stuff to do for our 2 days, with poor results. The top of one “things to do” lists started with a museum on an non-extravegant boat, followed by a hike/lake miles out of the area with no day trip coaches, and a statue of a bloke on a horse (commemorating Turkish independence).
Not a lot to go on. Undeterred, we headed to a beachside bar that was going to host the Wales pre-match party. This trip took up to half and hour, yet the taxi fare was only £6 to my delight.
Too early for a beer, we chose a coffee shop instead overlooking the sand and sea. Most shops and cafés don’t sell booze, being a Muslim country. Afterwards we tried to work out the tram system that does not appear on Google Maps. The hotel didn’t tell us this was an option either. The tram cost £0.34 one ride, has only one back-and-forth route for simplicity and got us within a 15 minute walk of our hotel, following a pitstop in Samsun Central for a walk along the parks, another independence monument (pic above) and seafront before lunch.
The nearest tram stop to the hotel was fun. Dropped off in the middle of nowhere among farm animals, trying to find and then access our large building, avoiding a noisy and fast 6 lane road.
Later in the evening we headed back to the beach intending to have a few beers now the Red Wall (name for Wales fans) were in full voice. After a single double-vodka I could tell I wasn’t feeling the blaring music coming from the bars, agreeing to go for some really nice food in a fish restaurant. I’m not a foodie but Pete really liked it. I was happy I tried anchovies for the first time, as well as the total cost of £61. The same back home would be easily double that given food quality and location. We got a taxi home, managing just the one beer before bed.
Day Three – More Samsun and Matchday
A huge reason why I didn’t fancy a session last night was because I wanted a swim in the sea. I like swimming, I don’t do it enough, and it was something I’m pleased to say I did. It was supposed to be thunderstorms all weekend but it was another day of hot sun leaving the hotel around 6am for the 30 minute drive.
The beach was completely deserted thankfully. The sand was free of rubbish, water cleaner than expected and I had a real relaxing hour contemplating what my usual Monday mornings are like. Back in time for breakfast, feeling very Carpe Diem.
Another bonus of exploring the tram line yesterday was that we found a few other bits to do, namely a cable car located between the city centre and beach area.
The cable car wasn’t much to write home about and only a small ascend, although once we got to the top paying £0.27 for the privilege, there was a nice viewpoint and cafe where we stopped for a Fanta. Nothing says sunny plus holiday more than a bloody Fanta.
Back on lower ground, we had a walk around another park area with a cool statue of an Amazonian warrior between two Lions. Apparently a tribe used to reside here many moons ago. Bit far innit? Lunch was a small backstreet greek restaurant off the tourist route. Unsurprisingly we were the only foreigners here, but we we’re spoilt with a kebab lunch that cost just £11 for two, including sides and drinks. I felt guilty paying so little. The kebab tasted like in the UK, why wouldn’t it, but made more presentable and not a ripoff.
Back at the hotel, 6 hours to kick-off, I had to seriously consider my initial plan of yet another cross-city travel to the beach/bars pre-match, knowing it would be far away from the ground, loud and busy (FML I’m a sad boring old man).
Still, after a needed hour kip, I enjoyed four or five beers before getting the short taxi to the ground, the 17 May Stadium. Home of Samsungspor, champions of Turkey’s second division a few weeks prior.
There was a healthy atmosphere outside the ground. Getting in was fine, passing no less than 3 bag and body searches. Nowadays it is not often I visit larger grounds, so I liked being high up in a netted corner with most of the other 1,300 contingent. That’s a lot of people, spending lots of money, going somewhere completely random, to watch 90 minutes of football.
…. And what a fucking shambles of a performance we were treated to, losing 2-0 without providing acceptable competition. It didn’t help we had Joe Morrell sent off in the first half. Not to mention Turkey also had a penalty saved and 2 goals cancelled by VAR.
We cannot attack let alone score. The players bottle it rarely playing to potential, manager tactics for either plan A or nonexistent plan B are shit. I’m not going to talk much about my opinions as I find it hard to articulate myself. It is however, hopefully the last game our manager Rob Page will be in charge of. I’m writing this early on Day Four, so I hope he’s gone before our next game in the Autumn, we’ll see.
The Turkish provided a terrific atmosphere. Even their stupid phone torch light show bollocks didn’t wind me up (that much).
Getting back from the ground was a challenge. There were free buses put on for the majority who wanted to go in to town, but we were only a 10 minute ride away. We got kept in the ground for 45 minutes after the game. By now the trams were no longer running and we would never have been able to book a taxi given the traffic.
After some perambulation, we decided to walk 40 minutes back. We were confident that the route was safe but quickly changed for a shorter route, walking along a slippy hard shoulder against 70mph incoming traffic, with only a phone torch and a white bucket hat to help us be seen by countless lorries. I was disappointed at this lack of judgement (stupid fucking thing to do). We both have been to enough places to know better. I felt very selfish towards my fiancé who was nice enough to finance some of the trip for my birthday.
Thankfully, we got back to the hotel safe, had a single beer amongst supporters, rightfully miserable and angry, getting to sleep at 2:30am.
Day Four – Home
I couldn’t believe how tired I was today. It was Tuesday and I don’t think I had over 3 hours sleep in one go since Thursday night. Grateful that our hotel was so far from town, the 5:30am taxi only took 10 minutes to the very very small airport for our transfer to Istanbul.
Not much really to cover from here to home. I did want to mention that I was sat next to ex Cymru footballer and radio pundit Iwan Roberts for both flights. He moved to a spare seat between his colleagues on our long flight to give Peter and I extra room. Such a nice gesture and it was appreciated. Even budget airlines seem VIP when you have a spare seat next to you!
I arrived home in Newport at before 9pm, so just the 18 hours A to B today, with Latvia plans already underway. Thankfully it’s another new country, so I’m not going just for the football. Thanks for reading.
How Not 2 Life 