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The Documentary Podcast

Shaken goalposts

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.32.6K Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2024

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Football rarely stops in Turkey, but when two earthquakes causes tens of thousands to die in the south-east region of the country early in 2023, even the passionately followed Super Lig top division is suspended. Hatayspor - a team from the league - loses its star player Christian Atsu to the rubble of a collapsed building. Its home city of Antakya is all but wiped from the map. A year later, football writer James Montague travels to his home nation of Turkey to tell the story of the indomitable club's improbable, and symbolic fight to survive in the aftermath of the disaster.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

I'm right outside the hotel now and the at I spot at the hotel now and the

0:09.2

at I spot altars are here in there well about a hundred of them with flares there's smoke everywhere and they're seeing some amazing songs. It's the 26th of May, the final match day of the season in the Super League,

0:29.7

Turkish football's top division.

0:32.2

And as the players leave their hotel bound for today's

0:34.8

crunch showdown, tensions are running high.

0:39.6

And there they go, the coach is off to the Merstin Stadium.

0:45.0

There's a bus of Ultras in front of them that have the flares, they're just hanging out the windows,

0:50.0

giving them a kind of guard of honor on the way to the stadium and that's where we're

0:54.7

going to go. The team we're here to see play, a club called Hat-I-Spor, is on the brink

1:01.8

of relegation. A dropping down of divisions that many fear will see the

1:06.6

side collapse altogether. If Hat-I-Sbore are to survive, they badly need to win today. They need other results to go

1:15.8

their way too. The odds are firmly stacked against them, but their loyal fans still

1:22.4

believe in miracles.

1:23.6

It's the hope of freedom of a nation.

1:26.6

We're only the same thing that she had a

1:28.5

umut what I a call can all jacked.

1:31.0

This will be hope, rebirth and development again for both me and the city.

1:35.0

It's like a dream for us but I trust this team. I love this team and I want my team to continue.

1:45.0

It's incredibly dark and stormy outside the Mercying Stadium.

1:51.0

There are thousands, tens of thousands of Hat-I-Sbore fans here as it's thunder

1:55.8

and lightning, drums, people celebrating with their babies, there's police with machine

2:00.4

guns and so many people we've spoken to have said that they're here

...

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