Khatib
| |||||||||||
Khatib-Gassett, more commonly known as Khatib, is a city in Candelaria And Marquez in the north-east of the island of Candelaria. It is one of the few large settlements in the islands not to possess a costal or riverside location.
The original town of Khatib was certainly founded in the mid-to-late 1800s, though its origins are not entirely clear. The spelling of the town’s name, which has remained consistent since its establishment, suggests an Arab origin for a significant early settler; but this would seem somewhat unlikely. It is also unclear just when the usual pronunciation of the name diverged from that suggested by the spelling; but by 1904 it is clear that locals pronounced it akin to the girls name Katie. Outsiders generally came to enunciate it more as “Kay-TEE”, with the emphasis on the second syllable; though most Candelariasians, including Khatib locals, pronounce it today more as “KAY-de”.
Early Khatib was a small but important mining community, though its successes were overshadowed by those of the nearby towns of Gassett and Rose of Sharon. The three towns became the centre of the mining area in the north-east; later transferring their attentions to manufacturing as supplies of other natural resources dried up. As nearby Alvery, Caires and Clotaire became important ports; the ‘Triple City’, or the ‘Threesome’ as Gassett, Khatib and Rose of Sharon were playfully known in Clotaire, became the lungs of north-east Candelaria.
The three cities had become effectively continuous by the mid-20th century; with Khatib considered the civic heart, Gassett the down-to-earth working-class area, and Rose of Sharon the suburban district. At the time, Khatib was the smallest of the three in population; but grew to become by far the largest by the early 1970s owing to the large numbers of tenement blocks put up in the post-Civil War era. In 1976, the citizens of the three cities voted in favour of officially being amalgamated into one as Khatib-Gassett, though in practical terms even the people of Gassett have taken to referring to the newly-united city simply as Khatib.
As with most modern cities in the Candelarias; Khatib-Gassett has been forced to diversify its industrial base, and besides the service industry no one form of employment predominates. Culturally, the city is well known for its Socialist sympathies, being an important area of government support during the Civil War and still the chosen home of many of the country’s most ardent Marxist-Leninist thinkers and activists. The ‘libertarian Marxist’ newspaper today know as the Gassett Candelariasian is published here and has a wide readership across the islands.
The city’s modern population is not considered especially diverse; though Khatib has long been home to one of the most concentrated Muslim populations in the country. Once predominately Turkish; the Muslim community is now itself much more varied and includes the most significant numbers of Arabs and Bettians in the islands.
Football
Khatib-Gassett has long been known as a hotbed of the national sport, and is home to three professional clubs.
Khatib FC
In the 1920s, at a time when most of the country’s larger amateur clubs were joining national leagues, the three cities of Gassett, Khatib and Rose of Sharon had enough football players to operate a league system of their very own. By the late 1940s however it became apparent that the success of the national professional league was too great for the cities to ignore, and finally in 1951 three clubs; Khatib FC, Gassett FC and Exeter Rovers (from Rose of Sharon) entered the league. Gassett FC were the early success story, but had gone out of business by 1959 leaving the other two to former Trident FC; the united club going on to win two titles before the league’s collapse.
Reformed as Khatib FC, though their home stadium was and remains in Gassett, the club entered the new CMSC in the mid-eighties. Despite the wealth of MarquezOW and CandelariaAM, they broke up that duo in their first season to finish second and remained a major force, finishing third two years later in the 87/88 season. From the early nineties, Khatib-Gassett would consistently have three clubs in the top division, with the ‘Tin Hats’ as Khatib FC are known finally lifting the league title in the 95/96 season.
Their decline in fortunes however was nothing short of spectacular. After a year of embarrassing struggle, they were relegated in 97/98, and likewise dropped out of the second division a year later. A period of ghastly mismanagement followed, with the club ploughing significant funds into a new stadium, with little on-pitch reward.
Turks’ Club of Khatib
The Turks were one of the early Three Cities League’s shining stars, established in 1929 as a sister club to Albrecht Turkish. Their support base moved far beyond the original Turkish community in later years, attracting disillusioned followers of Khatib FC even before the collapse of the original national league. Well-known for their inexplicable Green-and-Yellow-Striped shirts, they joined the top division of the CMSC in the 87/88 season. They are universally known as the Turks, as their former mentors in Albrecht have assumed a variety of other nicknames.
Theirs has been a story of consistent performance on and off the pitch, with nowhere near enough tangible reward as their dependably high standards should warrant. From the 89/90 season they finished fourth, second, fourth, fourth, second, second and third; finally lifting the title in the 96/97 season. Days after their victory they lost in the final of the CMS Cup, and two days after that their long-time coach Andrew Farmer suffered a serious horse-related decapitation injury from which he never recovered.
Their period since has been no less glorious however, after Heng Castillo took over as manager. The Turks somehow managed to loose three more Cup finals in a row, before ‘doing the double’ in the 00/01 season. After leaving the club to a third-place finish in 02/03, Castillo resigned after rows with the board over the building of the new Khatib Together Stadium. His assistant Robert Kilroy stayed on, and over the next four years reached the Cup final twice (loosing both) and finishing third in the league twice.
However the recent XXV season was, by all accounts, something of a nightmare from the off as the club found themselves in the relegation zone for much of the season. Though they hauled themselves to safety, Kilroy was axed leaving the club currently managerless. Money will have to be spent as soon as the new guy comes in – the club currently have only one full international, Giorgio Pezzoni of Kura-Pelland, and no-one who has played for the senior C&M national team.
KT Hotspur
The newest of the three clubs; having been formed in 1982 by local coal tycoon Laurence Adamczyk with the intention of becoming the primary team of Rose of Shannon.
As a semi-professional side, the all-white clad Spur achieved almost immediate notoriety as loosing finalists in the 85/86 CMS Cup, and they joined TurksKT in making the first division for the 87/88 season. Clearly by some distance the smallest of the three in fanbase, the Spur had all the money from the off; a vital plus point for the club despite the much-trumpeted socialist values of the CMSC. It was generally agreed that between 1987 and ’97 the Spur had frequently assembled the best team in the division, but Adamczyk’s predilection for hiring and firing at an extraordinary rate made for a less than attractive proposition for many potential managers. As such, their only league title came in the 92/93 season under Fred Ristic, who also found himself fired less than two years later.
In 1997, Adamczyk senior handed the responsibilities of the day-to-day running of the club over to his son Lee; who took on Jerry Huntick as manager and elected to make his tenure at the Spur a long-term project. Adamczyk Jr. was soon rewarded by a CMS Cup, though the Spur’s fortunes would later suffer from the rise of Castillo FC as the CMSC’s main moneyed team. Worse news still came shortly before the 02/03 season, straight after two straight third-place league finishes, when their plush home at Rosebery Place was deemed terminally unsafe. The club were forced to relocate to a rather smaller new home; the 11,000 seater, former athletics centre, in the Snowy Park district. The club’s fans made the best of it however and have become fiercely proud of the tiddly little stadium they call ‘The Valleys’ (from the biblical verse ‘I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys’).
Huntick’s involvement as manager continues to this day, with the Spur finally beginning to look like a potentially title-winning side again. After a promising start, the slumped to a mid-table finish in the XXV season; but have a capable squad offering C&M internationals Paolo Thorpe, Neville Bagshaw and Juan Carlos Revault as well as former St Samuel star Giuseppe Abellardo.
