Ali Sami Yen Stadium

About

Ali Sami Yen Stadium (Turkish: Ali Sami Yen Stadyumu) was the home of the football club Galatasaray in Istanbul, Turkey, from 1964 to 2010. It is named after the founder of the club, Ali Sami Yen. The stadium had a all-seater capacity of 23,477 and was situated in the Mecidiyeköy quarter of the Şişli district, at the center of the European side of the city.

Football was first played in Istanbul by some British players in a field known as Papazın Çayırı (Priest's Field) in the area that is now the site of Fenerbahçe's Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium. With the opening of the Taksim Stadium in 1921, which was located inside the courtyard of the Ottoman era Taksim Artillery Barracks (Taksim Topçu Kışlası) built by Sultan Abdülmecid I in the 1840s; the surrounding walls of which were transformed into tribunes. This new stadium that became the new football headquarters. In the urban development of 1939, the military barracks in which the Taksim Stadium was located was demolished in 1940. The stadium was thus lost. In this period, Fenerbahçe bought the land encompassing Papazın Çayırı and built the Fenerbahçe Stadium, while the Beşiktaş Club moved into the Şeref Stadium, located in the area where today's Çırağan Palace stands. It was Galatasaray that experienced the biggest problem with the use of a stadium in that period. The first steps to overcome this problem were taken in the initial years of the 1930s. The first initiative to acquire a plot of land for Galatasaray was in 1933, when the then president of the club Ali Haydar Barşal showed an interest in a mulberry orchard in Mecidiyeköy.

In the period 1933-35, discussions held with the government resulted in the allocation of a plot of land outside of the city limits in Mecidiye Köyü (Mecidiye Village) for a stadium to be built for Galatasaray. Excavations for the construction began in 1936. The President of the Turkish Sports Organization at the time, Adnan Menderes, provided financial assistance for the project. The efforts were left in the excavation stage however. In 1940, the matter of the stadium came up again under the presidency of Tevfik Ali Çınar. The same plot of land was leased to Galatasaray for a term of 30 years at a symbolical yearly rental fee of 1 lira. Galatasaray thus acquired the right to the use of the land. In leasing the land, Galatasaray committed to building a modern stadium as well as a bicycle velodrome. The construction could not start, however, due to limited funds and the general atmosphere of the war years. In 1943, Osman Dardağan led an initiative to build a modest stadium that would answer the immediate need.

In the atmosphere of war, only a small open tribune was allowed in the stadium, which was set on a field of earth and inaugurated under the presidency of Muslihittin Peykoğlu in 1945. Its distance from the city center in those days, however, its inaccessibility by public transportation, and the rough winds that characterized the district were factors that contributed to a long period in which the stadium lay idle and football games never took place. When the İnönü Stadium in the center of the city was opened in that period, Galatasaray abandoned the stadium building project in Mecidiyeköy, putting the project aside before fruition. In 1955, 30 more years were added to the right of utilization agreement, which at the time had 22 years to go, extending the terms until 2007. When the club failed to undertake the building of the Stadium, the project was taken on by the Physical Education General Directorate. The construction started in 1959. In 1961, during the presidency of Refik Selimoğlu, a new agreement was signed with the Physical Education General Directorate whereby the utilization rights of the newly completed stadium were explicitly given to Galatasaray.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.