Turkey's twin earthquake football clubs six months on from the devastation

Now, here is our former colleague Adam Leventhal, who is with us because he's produced a documentary and a series of articles for The Athletic on the devastation caused by the earthquakes in Turkey in February. Former Premier League footballer Christian Atsi was killed in the disaster, which took the lives of more than 50,000 people. Going to speak to Adam in just a second, but first, here is a clip from the documentary. This is the Hatay Sport home dressing room. It really is a remarkable but also poignant scene because it's very much been suspended in time. After the victory that evening, which Christian Atsi obviously scored the winning goal, that's where he would have been sat and got changed and then gone home. But all around as well, there is remnants of just the usual post-match. Adam, how did this come about? Well, obviously there's been so much attention on Istanbul for the Champions League final, and we wanted to tell the story on The Athletic of the football clubs that were impacted by the earthquake in February. As you mentioned, on February the 6th, twin earthquakes, two of the most powerful earthquakes that the country has seen for almost a century, 7.8 and 7.7 on the Richter scale, one at four o'clock in the morning, one at one o'clock in the afternoon following up. And we wanted to go and almost tell the story through the eyes of the football clubs, many of which stopped playing. And there is so much attention on Istanbul, the glitz and the glamour, and the places that I went to were anything but. I mean, we can, I think, have a look at the map of Turkey just to sort of show the geography of it. Obviously, Istanbul up there in the top left-hand corner, the area impacted was down in the southeast of the country, also in Northern Syria, which obviously has its own issues. Hatay was where the epicentre was, and that was the football club that we just saw there, Hatay Spor, who were immersed in the devastation, not only for the community, but in particular for the football club and the loss of Christian Atsu. And that was the dressing room at the stadium, which was a very poignant sight to see. It must have felt, I don't know, what were your emotions as you were walking around the stadium? It was very emotional, actually. I think, you know, football fans watching this, you know, stadiums are emotional places, they're eerie places when they're not empty, but when you know what happened there, in the last minute of the game against Kesimpasa, Christian Atsu had scored the goal and he'd not been in the team for a couple of months, he'd had an injury. And this was the scene post-match, suspended in time and almost like a time capsule. Everyone would have then gone home that evening, and that's when a few hours later the earthquake struck. So the contrast between seeing that stadium and thinking of the joy that he had, having knocked on the door of his manager Volkan Demirel, some people will be familiar with him, former Fenerbahce goalkeeper, Turkey international, said, look, I want a chance. The manager then threw him on and he said, it was great, I was so happy the last time I saw him, and then he was gone. So, yeah, the contrast was, it was a very emotional trip as a whole, to be honest. What did you see outside the stadium? Well, in the immediate outskirts of the stadium at Hatay, which did suffer some damage, as you can see there, there is, I mean, there's a crack there on the ground, but also those tents that you can see. Many of the stadiums became homes for the displaced, ultimately. AFAD is the disaster emergency response unit from the Turkish government, and they put up tents, yes, here in the stadium car park, but also everywhere you go around the affected area in Hatay, along the fault line through cities like Karamanmaraş, Gaziantep, Malatya, Adiaman, you will see huge swathes of cities, which are now rubble, completely leveled. And what has sprung up afterwards is tents, because that's where the displaced are living. A lot of people have left those communities and gone to safer places like Istanbul, for example, and other cities around, but many that are remaining, many Syrian refugees who've moved over the border from the northeast of Syria as well, living in places like Hatay, that's where they're living in tents. When the earthquake struck, it was in the middle of winter, it was minus, sub-zero temperatures. Now it's unbearably hot, and yes, people have a roof over their head, but it's so hot in those tents, and they're trying to transition them into container cities and things like that, but it's not adequate for anyone. When were those shots filmed? That was, what, 10 days ago? Right, so four months on from the earthquake, and people are still living in that situation. How are they dealing with it? I think it's very difficult for everyone. I think that the promise has been made by the newly elected president, Erdogan, to rehouse everyone within a year, but yeah, four months on, people are still living in tents. There are other scenes around the country, in Antakya, for example, where there are huge areas of the city which are still in rubble, still buildings that are in the state of collapse, still huge areas. I mean, this is one of the scenes, and this is repeated all over the place. There are just areas like this, which are where buildings once stood, and many areas have been cleared. I mean, this is a street in a place called Iskenderun. I'll tell you the story of them in a moment's time, but there is so much clear-up to still be done, so much healing to still be done for the people that have been affected. It's very difficult to even get your head around it. I mean, you mentioned the headline figure there of 60,000 deaths, another 100,000 people injured, and those are only conservative estimates of the damage that has been done. Christian Yatsu died in the earthquake. What did you hear about him when you were out there? A lot of warmth. Aside from the story I was saying about him getting his opportunity, just a very humble individual, very generous individual, someone that was very, although he wasn't playing, was a part of the fabric of the club, and they suffered his loss, but also, and this expands beyond just the football teams. Within their football team, there were six other people that died, a couple of academy players, someone who worked in the kitchen, their sporting director, goalkeeping coach as well, so as a family, as a football club, they have suffered huge losses, the worst amount of losses of any of the football clubs in Turkey, but then, for example, the media officer at Hatay Sport, we were speaking to him, we stood on the pitch where Yatsu scored his goal, and he was saying, well, yeah, we're suffering losses as a club, but I lost my aunt, I lost five cousins, and these are stories, everyone that you speak to, for example, my guide who was there, he lost someone who was in the same building that Christian Yatsu was in, and they were unable to ever recover his friend's body. Everyone in that region has been affected one way or another. This is the scene of the Renaissance Residence Hotel where Christian Yatsu sadly died, along with Taner Suvut, who was the sporting director of Hatay Sport. It just shows you the scale of the building that collapsed. And there are, and it's worth mentioning, there are investigations ongoing, that's the swimming pool, which would have been on the ground floor of the hotel. There are investigations going on across the affected area into why so many buildings did collapse. There's investigations into building practices and things like that, which will continue for quite some time. But yeah, Christian Yatsu, and he was the most high-profile name in terms of a footballing audience, and that's why so much attention was on it then. But we wanted to go back and see what has happened since. And as you can see from those pictures, there is still so much to be done. It feels a bit banal to ask, but are they still playing football in those areas? Some of the clubs are. Nine clubs stopped playing, and some clubs actually relocated out of the area to continue. There was an option given to all of the clubs in that area to stop playing by the Turkish Football Federation. Some took that opportunity because it meant that they were not gonna be relegated from their league. For example, Gaziantep, they didn't suffer any losses within the football club, but they thought, well, we can loan our players out and we will stay in the league. But there are other stories of teams that were in the affected area. We saw the shot earlier on of Iskenderun. Near to Hatay, third division side, that's their training ground there. On the night of the earthquake, the team were in that hotel. Their coaches were in the building that was there. And they ran across the road to try and save their coach. It was a goalkeeper coach, also a strength and conditioning coach. They managed to save the strength and conditioning coach, pull him out of the rubble, but he later died. The goalkeeper coach also died. An academy player also died in the earthquake. But they resolved to carry on, to play on, to almost act as inspiration to Iskenderun. And within that, there are so many twists in terms of timing and logistics, the difference between life and death. They recruited a new coach in Istanbul, where they relocated, Levent Sahin, who used to be the assistant coach for Turkey. And unbeknownst to him when he took over, his cousins were staying in that same building. And they had actually been saved by the players that he was now coaching. So the link between Levent Sahin and the Iskenderun players is immense. And they're sort of playing on with that feeling of trying to heal themselves with football. And they're still playing in the playoffs. They went on a great run in adversity, 11 wins out of 15. And yeah, they've made the playoffs. They lost the first leg of their semifinal a couple of days ago. They play again. And I've sort of absorbed that story. Although they play in orange and blue, which is the team colours of my rivals, Luton Town, as a Watford fan, I've adopted them. And I really want them to succeed because they are an inspirational story that's come out of this utter devastation. You showed us on that map how far away it is geographically from Istanbul and the Champions League final. But it also just feels a world away. Yeah, absolutely. It is, but it's only an hour's flight away. It's so close. And I spent some time in Istanbul. I spoke to some people that had moved to there. And life goes on. It's a wonderful city. The fans that go there, I'm sure there's many Manchester City fans that are leaving now if they haven't already left. And they're going to have a great time in Istanbul. But it's really worth remembering that not that far away. What, 300 miles? If you were travelling 12 hours by plane maybe, or by coach to travel there, it's the same country. This is also Turkey. And there is still so much work to be done. And one final thing I should say, actually, Hatay Spor's president, Lutfu Savas, you know, he's an upstanding member of the community. He's a mayor of Hatay. And he was also saying, and he was quite open in being quite pleading about it. We would love to play a team like Manchester City, like Liverpool, like Manchester United to have some sort of fundraiser to earn some money for Hatay Spor, because we need the money. This region needs the money. So, you know, they're big clubs. They're big established clubs like Hatay Spor, but they're in desperate need of help. And that applies to the whole of that affected region, which stretches 140,000 square miles. So it's a hell of a big region. So where can we see your documentary? Well, there's a series of articles on The Athletic. There's a three-part series. There's also a two-part documentary, which is now out wherever you get your podcasts, and there'll be further video on social media and beyond as well. So, yeah. Good luck with it. Thanks for coming in. Cheers.