Without doubt Galatasaray is Turkey's greatest sports club. This has many reasons, but one of the most clear arguments of this fact is that Galatasaray's sportive activities covers much more numbers of disciplines than any other club in the country. Some of these disciplines such as soccer, basketball, voleyball are very popular and some are not. There are even some branches like rugby, hockey, wrestling, boxing and handball which were very active in the past but cancelled later due to several reasons. But Galatasaray is still the biggest club of Turkey with the most number of active branches. It is worth to consider that in the year of 1987, Galatasaray Sports Club won Turkish National Championships in fifteen different sportive branches including soccer. This is a hard to reach record in the sports history.
Here are some of the branches of Galatasaray Sports Club today and past:
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Galatasaray pioneered turkish
basketball like they do many other sport disciplines in
Turkey. Galatasaray has such big successes in basketball,
as if no other club in the world has seen before. They
have been champions in the turkish league in 10
successive years. Galatasaray's basketball branch was
founded in 1933 and they have absolutely dominated
turkish basketball scene for years. This dominance was so
strong, even their eternal rivals Fenerbahçe could not
win a single game against Galatasaray until late 1950's.
Moreover the game in 15th January 1950 against
Fenerbahçe resulted in a record-breaking score and
Galatasaray won with 105-39!!. Ali Uras, Suat Kesim,
Samim Göreç, Hüseyin Öztürk, Erdoğan Partener,
Candaş Tekeli, Yalçın Granit, Yılmaz Gündüz, Erdem
Göreç, Ali Kazaz and Sadi Gülçelik were some of the
players of this legendary squad. Until the 70's, when commercial companies entered the basketball scene and new clubs arise under their sponsorship, Galatasaray was the ultimate dominator of turkish basketball. Right after then other clubs such as Eczacıbaşı, Efes Pilsen and Ülker won various championships, but Galatasaray is still the only multi-brach sports club who is able to challenge with these financially stronger opponents and continue to win championships and cups, as in 1990 league championship and 1994 Federation Cup wins. |
| Galatasaray female basketball
team is still dominating the league as strong as their
male counterparts. They are the turkish champions since
1989 in seven successive years with their remarkable
record of three succesive seasons without a single
defeat.
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| Galatasaray's volleyball
branch is founded in 1930 and won their first national
championship in 1931-32 season. Years of late 30's and
40's passed with a couple of successes, but it is the
year 1953 when Galatasaray's overwhelming superiority in
volleyball begins. They won the national championship
tvelwe years long with the single exception of 1958
season.The players of this magnificent squad were Yiğit
Ayaşoğlu, Ayhan Demir, Sinan Erdem, Erdoğan Teziç,
Güngör Demirtaş, Oral Yılmaz, Selçuk Atamer, Ertan
Pamir, Pavlo Ditkovski, Ziya Kayacan, Değer Eraybar,
Aral Sürek, Egemen Güredin, Özer Ödelli, Hüseyin
Arıboğan, Semih Haznedaroğlu, Şevket Güventürk,
Ayhan Altuğ, Yavuz Işılay, Semih Noyan, Tanzer Uçak,
Yıldıray Pağda, Yalçın Sarısözen, Alpaslan
Karagülle, Erdal Önder, Yalçın Gördürür, Haldun
Bazlar and Özcan Sarıtürk. Galatasaray is the only multi-branch sports club, who could break the dominance of corporate teams in national championship since 1970. They won the title in 1987, 1988 and 1989. |
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| One of the record-breaking performances of Galatasaray worth to register is their unbelievable dominance over their eternal rivals Fenerbahce. Galatasaray has beaten Fenerbahce in every match from 1969 on to 1990, strictly a 21 years long period. Never think that Fenerbahce has equalized this challenge since 1990. They were able only to win a single match in 1990, and since then Galatasaray is still continuing to win each and every game. |
It is easy to guess that a pioneering sports club such as Galatasaray has a well known superiority in the "mother of all sports" too. Roots of nearly all of the famous names of Turkish athletics history goes to Galatasaray. Some of these names are Adil Giray, Şekip Engineri, Vildan Aşir Savaşır, Ömer Besim Koşalay, Vedat Abut, Semih Türkdoğan, Mehmet Ali Aybar, Suat Hayri Ürgüplü, Naili Moran, Rıza Maksut İşman, Faik Önem, Cezmi Or, Cahit Önel, Turhan Kahraman, Şükrü Çaprazlı and Murat Akman.
| Galatasaray is the leading sports club of Turkey in water sports too. The club is probably the only sports club in the world who owns an island. Therefore water sports are the hallmark of Galatasaray Sports Club. From swimming to surfing and rowing, from water polo to diving or sailing, all kinds of water sports are performed in the club. Galatasaray's Water Polo team is participating in European Champions League since two years. |  |
| Rowing is one of the branches with a never-ending rivalry between major clubs. Galatasaray is the leading club in this challenge as in many other sports. |
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