Never been to Istanbul before however, heard Taksim Square is a good place to meet/drink like in Aberdeen.

Thought I’d start a thread for people to say if they are going to be there to mingle and enjoy a few beers in the sun.

Sounds like a plan.

I believe the club will be putting some information out regarding meeting places. There are a lot of security concerns due to Besiktas being at home.

I know there's a lot of posts about various things surrounding the trip to Istanbul. The flights we have found land at sabiah Gokcen airport at 16:30 does anyone with any prior experience know wether this would be early enough to get to Istanbul centre collect tickets and get to the ground? Thank you in advance if anyone can help

MyRightFoot wrote:I know there's a lot of posts about various things surrounding the trip to Istanbul. The flights we have found land at sabiah Gokcen airport at 16:30 does anyone with any prior experience know wether this would be early enough to get to Istanbul centre collect tickets and get to the ground? Thank you in advance if anyone can help

The club haven't advised the ticket collection times yet but your airport is about 30km the wrong side of the Bosphorus which will be 2.5 t0 3 hours drive to the centre of Istanbul due to congestion on the roads. it is then between 60-90 mins to the stadium. In Aberdeen late arrivals, like me, were able to pick up tickets at the ground. Fingers crossed that similar arrangements are in place.

Thanks for the info, we have opted to pay a bit more to fly to Istanbul Atatürk airport and land at 11am! Can't wait

MyRightFoot wrote:I know there's a lot of posts about various things surrounding the trip to Istanbul. The flights we have found land at sabiah Gokcen airport at 16:30 does anyone with any prior experience know wether this would be early enough to get to Istanbul centre collect tickets and get to the ground? Thank you in advance if anyone can help

İt is just the "turn home from work" traffic time. you can by-pass the bridge traffic by hiring a taxi and telling the driver to drive via 3rd bridge (the very north one). but you will have to pay loads of money then... ataturk airport seems to be a safer and better option.

The first time I was in Istanbul was on business many years ago. We landed at the old airport and in those days you walked down the steps off the plane. This was circa 1980. Soldiers with shaven heads and tin hats `welcomed` us by training their rifles on all passengers when we disembarked the plane and walked to the terminal. These were the days of `Midnight Express` so pretty scary. I was there many times after that but not recently. The last time I was there was shortly after the Leeds fan was stabbed to death in Istanbul. We landed at the new modern Airport and were staying overnight prior to going on a cruise the following day. As we had no idea where the hotel was we took a taxi. The taxi driver looked fierce ( and thats being kind). When we told him which hotel we were going to he became visibly angry and cursed a lot in Turkish. As it turned out the hotel was less than a mile drive ( and he had queued for over an hour for a fare)His English was poor and my Turkish non existent. However we had 1 common language. Football. He asked if I was a Leeds supporter. Now we were scared. I said no and told him Burnley. He then started to apologize profusely for the death of the Leeds fan . We arrived at our hotel and he insisted the ride was free. He also insisted that he picked us up the following morning and took us to our ship. Again no charge. From that day on I have loved the Turkish people.
My advice is respect them and their country and you will have a great time. Awesome food and drinks. The main Bazaar is not to be missed. Be careful of course. Wish I could be there as I was in Stuttgart 52 years ago !!!!

I’ve never been to Istanbul but I’ve been to Turkey more time than I can remember, and in my experience the people are the friendliest you’ll ever meet. To read some posts over the last few days, you’d think we were playing on mars or something. Do you really think it’s going to take more than 5 hours to get from one side of what I’m sure is a thoroughly modern city to the other?

I’m massively excited about his. See you in Taksim Square for an Efes

Just booked an apartment for Thursday and Friday at taksim square. So sounds like a wise choice?

scouseclaret wrote:I’ve never been to Istanbul but I’ve been to Turkey more time than I can remember, and in my experience the people are the friendliest you’ll ever meet. To read some posts over the last few days, you’d think we were playing on mars or something. Do you really think it’s going to take more than 5 hours to get from one side of what I’m sure is a thoroughly modern city to the other?

I’m massively excited about his. See you in Taksim Square for an Efes

Aaaah the Turks...... Lovely people

there is a tiny tiny minority of fans with cash to burn for stuff like these trips,

cricketfieldclarets wrote:Just booked an apartment for Thursday and Friday at taksim square. So sounds like a wise choice?

We’ll turn the place Claret, cricketfield!

Wile E Coyote wrote:there is a tiny tiny minority of fans with cash to burn for stuff like these trips, a big fat block of monied cricket loving types always seem to find the readies for overseas matches. usually offspring of plumbers or bank staff, not your average fan.

I'm a decorator And my offspring are going and they don't like cricket.....But Fu.. Knows where they get the money from!

Wile E Coyote wrote:there is a tiny tiny minority of fans with cash to burn for stuff like these trips, a big fat block of monied cricket loving types always seem to find the readies for overseas matches. usually offspring of plumbers or bank staff, not your average fan.

Dont drink much.
Dont smoke.
Dont take drugs.
Live within my means.
Good at travelling on a budget.
Got a good job.

Istanbul is the proverbial rainy day...

To start off with...

Then will make a few sacrifices. Wont be doing Fulham and Southampton. Both of which will have cost me more combined than istanbul.

scouseclaret wrote:We’ll turn the place Claret, cricketfield!

Might have to have an apartment after party

Wile E Coyote wrote:there is a tiny tiny minority of fans with cash to burn for stuff like these trips, a big fat block of monied cricket loving types always seem to find the readies for overseas matches. usually offspring of plumbers or bank staff, not your average fan.

I like cricket. Not sure if I’m your “average” (whatever that means) fan or not, but I was born in the year we last played in Europe, so what I do know is this may be the only chance I ever get to watch Burnley play a competitive game on foreign soil.

scouseclaret wrote:I like cricket. Not sure if I’m your “average” (whatever that means) fan or not, but I was born in the year we last played in Europe, so what I do know is this may be the only chance I ever get to watch Burnley play a competitive game on foreign soil.

Exactly. Weigh up the cost vs the reward and if you can afford it its a no brainer if you want to go.

Saved up all summer on the off chance the European tour had trips like this. Then got sent away with work, so tv for me (hopefully)........... lol

So what’s the best flights etc people are jumping on?

Another for taksim square area. We land at 16:30 on Wednesday. Booked a hotel in taksim. Meeting my brother who lands from Oz a little earlier. See you there.

Just driven to Bristol and done a 12 hour night shift to help pay for this one. Like scouse says this could be the one and only chance we ever get to watch our team play in Europe so I couldn’t miss it UTC

It's a bit of a shame to go to Istanbul and planto have a few beers instead of visiting the wonderful sights on offer such as the Topkapi palace, Blue mosque etc.

You can have a beer in Weatherspoons

Spijed wrote:It's a bit of a shame to go to Istanbul and planto have a few beers instead of visiting the wonderful sights on offer such as the Topkapi palace, Blue mosque etc.

You can have a beer in Weatherspoons

Will be doing that for sure.

Boat ride on the Bosphorus well worth doing too.

I love Istanbul but only got one night this time so little time to do more exploring.

Spijed wrote:It's a bit of a shame to go to Istanbul and planto have a few beers instead of visiting the wonderful sights on offer such as the Topkapi palace, Blue mosque etc.

You can have a beer in Weatherspoons

Do they have ‘spoons in Istanbul as well???

The Star and Moon???

After the game the transport stop that leaves the stadium area to Taksim square is an 8 minutes walk away but it leaves 16 minutes after the end of the game @11:16 local time and its a 2hr 9 mins journey, after that the next one is @ 4:51am and takes 1hr 47 mins, its 22 miles away so taxis will cost

scouseclaret wrote:Do they have ‘spoons in Istanbul as well???

The Star and Moon???

Benidorm it ain't!

AGENT_CLARET wrote:After the game the transport stop that leaves the stadium area to Taksim square is an 8 minutes walk away but it leaves 16 minutes after the end of the game @11:16 local time and its a 2hr 9 mins journey, after that the next one is @ 4:51am and takes 1hr 47 mins, its 22 miles away so taxis will cost

£20 I reckon for a taxi.

Taxis are cheap over there.

Spijed wrote:It's a bit of a shame to go to Istanbul and planto have a few beers instead of visiting the wonderful sights on offer such as the Topkapi palace, Blue mosque etc.

You can have a beer in Weatherspoons

Agree with you however, this is for the Wednesday night when people land and before the game. It will also be a good meeting point for supporters to mingle not necessarily just to get on the beers all day.

On the subject of the money, if you were to set yourself up as a sole trader - a you tube blogger - would you then be able to write off all the costs of following Burnley against your taxable income? As long as you produce a blog or book out of it all in the end?

AndrewJB wrote:On the subject of the money, if you were to set yourself up as a sole trader - a you tube blogger - would you then be able to write off all the costs of following Burnley against your taxable income? As long as you produce a blog or book out of it all in the end?

In theory yes. In practice not really. You’d have to register it as a business and convince HMRC it wasn’t an expensive hobby if you kept posting losses.

For people who can aford to travel well fair play to them as how can you knock fans getting behind our team .

Hello all,
We are contacting to you with regards to your land arrangements needs, especially shuttle bus transfer to/from Basaksehir Fatih Terim Stadium for the game on 09 August 2018, Thursday. We are The DMC Istanbul, specialized in hosting football teams and related parties in Turkey for the international tournament games. Sorry if some of them are real rivals for you, in past we handled many supporters groups from the UK, Liverpool (1000 supporters) back in 2005 for the CL final, Leeds United, Tottenham, Bolton, Man United, Chelsea, St Johnstone.... If you look at our website http://www.thedmcistanbul.com/sports-tr ... ement.html you can see more details about our services.
Basaksehir stadium is far off city centre, such as Taksim square or Sultanahmet (old town) areas are within 30/35 kms distance. The kick off is at 21:45 so at the end of the game, public transportation from that area to city centre will not be an option. Considering the number of Burnley fans coming to the game, amount of taxis - sorry to say this but most of them will be asking more than taximeters' charge as it happens in every metropols - may not be enough at that time of the day.
As a travel agent, and we have dealt similar occasions in past, we would like to offer you city center - stadium - city center bus transfer services. If you want to book any services through us, please contact at thedmc@thedmcistanbul.com or on mobile 00905337085197
Wish you safe travel to Istanbul and good luck for the game, and please do not hesitate to contact us for any further information.
Kind Regards,
Sinan Erkul

So Magic Carpets and camels aren’t readily available gutted

Even though the official meeting point from the club won't be in Taksim on the Thursday I imagine most of us are staying here so a communal drink on the Wednesday night would be good.

see you there

I would recommend you the Nevizade Street ''Cicek Pasajı'' where there are lot of pubs.

Thank you for the recommendation.

Four of us land at 19:30 Wednesday evening so should be checked in and out by 21:30.

Where are fans drinking if they are staying at Taksim Square?

We will be around taksim tomorrow night.

Don't forget to pack your burkhas.