Gençlerbirliği S.K.

Gençlerbirliği squad in 1924.

Gençlerbirliği were founded in a slightly different way compared to many other football clubs, having been established by students from a high school, Ankara Erkek Lisesi (Sultani Mektebi) now Ankara Atatürk Lisesi . The students in question (Ramiz Eren, Mennan İz, Mazhar Atacanlı, Sait, Kenan, Nuri, Namık Katoğlu, Namık Ambarcıoğlu, Rıdvan Kırmacı, Hafi Araç, Ruhi, Sarı Ziya and Hakkı) had failed to be selected for their own school team, and asked one of their student friends, Asim, to talk with his father about setting up a football team for them to show how well they could play.

On 14 March 1923, Asim's father, the member of parliament from Muş Province, established the team for his son and his friends. Since all the members of the team were students he chose the name 'Youth Union' (Turkish: Gençlerbirliği). They elected Sarı Ziya's father Faik Bey as their first chairman.[2]

Turkish newspaper Yeni Sabah announcing the Turkish championship title of Gençlerbirliği on 16 July 1941.

Subsequently, these young students wanted to play against the school team which had not selected them. Gençlerbirliği won the game, played at "Hamit tarlası", 3–0. According to these young rebellious players this victory forged the identity of their new team.

They won the regional Ankara Football League a record nine times between 1923 and 1959, when the league had first level status before the introduction of a nationwide league.[3] Their greatest success domestically were the victories in the former Turkish Football Championship, when they became Turkish champions in 1941 and 1946.[4] Gençler entered the Turkish National League in 1959 and played 12 seasons until relegation in the 1969–70 season. They played in the second level until relegation to third level in the 1978–79 season. The club came back to second level after the merger of the third level with second level, at the end of the 1979–80 season. They finished second from last in Group A of the Second League, and had to relegate to the regional league. But, since the number of teams in the second division was increased, Gençlerbirliği were readmitted. The club won Group D in the 1982–83 season and finally returned to the top-flight after 13 years. They relegated again in 1987–88 season. Finally, Gençlerbirliği returned to the top-flight in the 1988–89 season, in their first return attempt. Gençlerbirliği's most successful seasons in the Süper Lig are 1965–66 and 2002–03, when they reached the third place. At the end of the 2017–18 season Gençler only reached the 17th place and as a result the club relegated to the second tier TFF First League.

There are two rumors about how Gençlerbirliği got their team colours, black and red:

• The young students went to a local haberdashers and the only available colours were black and red. They purchased these colours to sew their own kit.
• The outskirts of Ankara during spring time see plenty of poppy flowers (Gelincik) blooming and Gençlerbirliği selected the red and black of this flower for their colours. Gençlerbirliği merchandise in their store is usually called Gelincik by their

.

Gençlerbirliği's arch-rival are the neighbouring club Ankaragücü and games between the clubs are considered as the "Derby of the Capital".

Gençlerbirliği have always been one of the teams in Turkey most notable for their talented young footballers that they procure through scouting both in Turkey and throughout Europe and Africa. For example, Geremi was scouted and raised by the club, transferred to Real Madrid and later Chelsea. Another of Gençlerbirliği's young stars Isaac Promise received the 2005–06 Super League Individual Youth player of the Year award.[5]

Gençlerbirliği's state-of-the-art youth academy is located in Beştepe, Ankara with 50 acres (200,000 m²) of training facilities (Beştepe İlhan Cavcav Tesisleri).

Gençlerbirliği had been run by İlhan Cavcav from 1978 until his death in 2017. With Cavcav's help, Gençlerbirliği have become one of the more stable clubs in Turkey. This has been achieved mainly through the departure of the most talented players every season to the other clubs in Turkey. Departing players are usually replaced with much cheaper imports from Turkey, Europe or Africa.

As of 30 September 2004

UEFA Cup Winners' Cup

Season	Round	Club	Home	Away	Aggregate
1987–88	First Round	Dinamo Minsk	1–2	0–2	1–4

UEFA Cup

Season	Round	Club	Home	Away	Aggregate
2001–02	First Round	Halmstad	1–1	0–1	1–2
2003–04	First Round	Blackburn Rovers	3–1	1–1	4–2
	Second Round	Sporting CP	1–1	3–0	4–1
	Third Round	Parma	3–0	1–0	4–0
	Fourth Round	Valencia	1–0	0–2 (aet)	1–2
2004–05	Second Qualifying Round	Rijeka	1–0	1–2	2–2 (a)
	First Round	Egaleo	1–1	0–1	1–2

UEFA Intertoto Cup

Season	Round	Club	Home	Away	Aggregate
1995	Group Stage (Group 11)	Strasbourg	—	1–4	3rd
		Tirol Innsbruck	—	2–3
		Hapoel Petah Tikva	4–0	—
		Floriana	3–0	—

Balkans Cup

Season	Round	Club	Home	Away	Aggregate
1967–68	Group Stage (Group A)	Beroe Stara Zagora	0–2	0–1	4th
		Vllaznia Shkodër	1–1	0–1
		Farul Constanța	1–2	1–3

UEFA Ranking history

See also: UEFA coefficient

As of 2009

Season	Rank	Points	Ref.
2002	157	15.362	[6]
2003	162	15.495	[7]
2004	88	23.656	[8]
2005	94	23.872	[9]
2006	106	22.634	[10]
2007	106	21.791	[11]
2008	100	23.469	[12]
2009	171	7.445	[13]

• See Category:Gençlerbirliği S.K. footballers

• Hacettepe SK, the reserve team of Gençlerbirliği.

• Ankara Rüzgarı. Kendi Yayınları 2003 ISBN 975-92422-0-6 author: Tanıl Bora. (in Turkish)

• Official website
• Gençlerbirliği on TFF.org