This Is This

16. Intercontinental Three A Side
Map

We went further into town, up a hill through some winding back-streets. We found around ten children from the ages of eight to eighteen playing football. The ball rolled over to me. I flicked it onto my knees, juggled it about, and kicked it back.

“Eh, Eengleesh!” one of the older boys shouted to us. “Football! Yes?”

They cleared the area of the smaller children and we were faced with three eighteen year olds. Someone from the sidelines pointed to us, then to the Turkish boys. “Three-three. Yes?”

I thought this was too small a football team. “Five-five?” I held up five fingers, but they were too keen on the idea of a Turkey versus England match to listen.

Claus and Mark told them they were German. The Turks understood and started reeling off the names of German international football stars.

I pointed to a Turk our age and said “referee?” I blew an imaginary whistle and traced stripes on my t-shirt. He nodded and designated the goal posts (parked cars and the sides of the street) and he let the Europeans have the ball. I kicked off and soon understood that the use of the walls and balconies in the alley was permitted. We soon had an audience of about twenty youths, shouting and cheering at every shot and pass.

The Turkish footballers, called Kamil, Davut and Mustapha, clearly had the better team. We were playing with a plastic ball and the Europeans were wearing hiking boots. We only needed to tap the ball for it to fly.

All of us scored at least once and when we did so, the members from both teams would always congratulate the scorer. The result of this international friendly match at full time was six-four to them. After half an hour, it got too dark to play so we sat on the sidewalk and talked.

“What is your favourite football?” Mustapha asked me.

I looked puzzled and he listed a few names.

“Oh, my favourite team?”

“Yes, team.”

“I don’t like watching football. It’s good to play, but it’s not the same on telly. I like basketball.”

“Basketball?” asked Davut, “Very good. I like this.”

“Excuse me, sir.” I turned to find a chubby ten year old tugging at my sleeve. “Can I play football with you?”

“Not now, I’m too tired.” The game had nearly exhausted me.

“All right, sir. But if you want to, I pray you tell me.”

“OK.” He spoke with a remarkably convincing English accent. “Have you ever been to England?”

“No, sir, but I would very much like to go one day.”

“Where did you learn your English?”

“In school. English is my favourite subject. Excuse me now, sir.”

He walked away. That ten year old in a back street in Asian Istanbul spoke near perfect English. This added to the surreal dreaminess of the scene. Claus and Mark talked in broken German to a woman leaning out of a window above. Mustapha told me she taught the language at a nearby school.

When the time came, our newfound friends walked back with us to the station, asking questions all the way: where we’d been, where we were going and why we were travelling. One of the younger boys among the ten who walked back with us asked me a question which I didn’t understand. He bowed in a Muslim prayer motion.

“Religion?” I asked. I made a cross with my fingers. I’m not strictly a Christian, but it was a conversation piece.

I think he said Christian and Jesus in Turkish. I pointed to him, “Allah?”

He nodded proudly.

Davut cut in at that point explaining that he would like to visit England one day. “I think I go to England in three years from now.” He paused after every three or four words as he spoke and changed the infliction to make it sound like a question. He was seeking my conformation that he was getting the words out right while I nodded along.

“You like the music?” he asked.

“Love it. Do you?”

“Yes, I like very much heavy metal.” He elaborated, “Judas Priest, Scorpions, Motorhead, Iron Maiden.” He pronounced it “eye-ron”.

“Anthrax, Van Halen, Metallica,” I continued. He repeated the names enthusiastically as I said them. When I mentioned Metallica his eyes lit up.

“Master of Puppets!”

“Great album. Brilliant.”

“And Michael Jackson. Is good! You like?”

“Um - not bad.”

When we got to the station, we all exchanged addresses and pronounced each other welcome in our houses for eventual, or in my case further, visits abroad. We shook hands and said goodbye and got on the train for Ankara.

That was the last I saw of Claus and Mark, too, because our seat reservations split us up. This was the first time I had reserved a seat but I thought it would be best to ensure a good night’s sleep.

Because of the efficiency of the Istanbul-Ankara line, an overnight train consisted of three hours travel followed by three static hours on the tracks somewhere down the line in the cold hours of the night. I shivered for two hours because I couldn’t be bothered to reach up into my bag for my jeans  and sweat shirt, but eventually the mosquitoes persuaded me. The train started moving at early light and reached Ankara around nine in the morning.

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