In the summer months of 2004 during my trip to Istanbul I took a friend of mine to the Fenerium ,the Fenerbahçe Shop selling official team apparel to the fans, located inside the Şükrü Saraçoğlu stadium. Of course, I am a die hart Beşiktaş Fan and only shop at the Kartal Yuvası located across Bosphorus by Beşiktaşs İnönü stadium.
My friend had enjoyed our visit to Fenerium and after buying some gifts from the store he asked the sales person if we could take a quick look at the stadium and stands behind the closed doors. The store clerk talked to the stadium officials and told us politely, that they had denied our request. Of course we had always seen the stadium on T.V. but to take quick glance with bare eyes had meant a lot to us that day.
I havent seen inside the stadium on that day but years later in March of 2010 my niece Katherine Ozmeral visited the stadium as a member of a group of students from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who were in Istanbul as part of their management studies. They not only visited arguably the best stadium in Istanbul (facilities wise)*, but they were also shown the media rooms, locker rooms, Fenerbahçe museum and Fenerbahce TV studio.
Katherine has shared some of the pictures taken that day with her Uncle Cem, the Beşiktaş fan and he is sharing these with the dear Fenerbahçe fans.
OCTOBER 2015 , MY VISIT TO THE FENERBAHÇE STADIUM AND MUSEUM
Eleven years after my first try this time I was able to go into Fenerbahçe Şükrü Saraçoğloğlu Stadium thanks to my dear Friend Zihni Zeren who is a die heart Fenerbahe fan. Zihni is the General Manager of the Burhan Felek Arrena, the Volleyball facility for the Turkish Volleyball Federation. We not only visited the stadium that day but also Fenerbahce museum which open to the public.He was also able to get me into Besiktaş Vodafone Arena few days later which is still under construction and I was denied entrance to the construction site a year earlier. I told him that he is like a locksmith and there are no doors that he can't open.
November 15, 2015
Dublin, Ohio
Image:
FOR FENER MEMORIABILIA PICTURES AND AN ARTICLE (TURKISH)
