Their new underground system opened a week ago and the Turkish lira is likely to devalue further as inflation continues to erode the worth of the population's savings.

There is no plaque to mark the spot where Kevin Speight and Chris Loftus were stabbed to death on the eve of Leeds' UEFA Cup semi-final against Galatasaray. No memorial, no reminder.

To their families who continue to grieve, it may seem callous. But perhaps the knowledge that the people of Istanbul haven't forgotten what happened to two Englishmen on their streets may carry some solace back to Yorkshire.

On Tuesday night, another Turkish side, Besiktas, who are also from Istanbul, will carry flowers to Elland Road in a gesture of respect and regret.

The 500 supporters who arrive for the Champions League match against Leeds know that nothing they do can bring back Speight and Loftus but they will be bringing the flowers from a city which still remembers.

At last week's game against Barcelona at the Inonu Stadium, they unfurled a banner to the world. It read: 'Leeds and Besiktas - United Together.'

'This match is a chance for peace, for English and Turkish fans to be hand-in-hand at a football game,' said Levent Optik, of Garsi, Besiktas' most fanatical supporters group.

'We will take the flowers as a symbol. We know that the Leeds fans are good people, not hooligans. We see that in the Premier League on television every week. And we know what it is like to want Leeds to win, because we wanted them to beat Galatasaray last season.'

Words spoken with feeling and not because they are the right ones to offer. They are also words which belie the image of Turkish football as a cauldron of seething hate.

This is a country which is warm and generous to tourists but presents a hostility which knows no bounds to visiting football teams.

'Welcome to Hell' is the message Galatasaray fans offer at Ataturk Airport. And they mean it.

After a low-key and surprisingly passionless 1-1 draw against neighbours Istanbulspor on Saturday, those same fans still generated enough hatred and launched enough beer cans and bottles of water for the referee and the visiting team to require an escort off the pitch by police in full riot gear, shields and all.

You will still find those prepared to swear the deaths of Speight and Loftus were a natural consequence of the boorish behaviour of Leeds supporters that night in April.

Only last week, Ali Umit Demir, one of the two men on trial for the murders, turned up in court wearing a red T-shirt with a Turkish flag on it and said: 'We were obliged to do it because the Leeds fans were insulting the Turkish flag.'

Demir, whose attachment to Galatasaray is tenuous at best, is not alone in his views. 'I work in the resort of Bodrum during the summer and I see that a lot of English people like to drink,' said Kerem Unal, a hotel receptionist.

'That is good, but when they drink, they scream and shout and throw glasses around. They behave in ways which annoy people and if they burned the Turkish flag again and broke restaurant windows as they are supposed to have done in Taksim Square, I think there would be trouble again.'

Thankfully, such thinking is not shared by the majority of people in Istanbul and by none of the Besiktas supporters who spoke to Soccernet.

One of the tragic ironies is that Taksim Square is within walking distance of their club's Inonu Stadium, yet a taxi ride from Galatasaray's Ali Sami Yen stadium.

Set into a hillside with a breathtaking view across the Bosporus, it is a monolith compared to the buildings which surround it. White stone, fading pink concrete and unremitting purple grills everywhere, it looks as though it has been untouched since it was built in 1903.

Just along from the ground, ceremonial sentinels stand guard outside the Dolmabahce - an Ottoman Palace of such staggeringly over-elaborate Rococo architecture that it looks like an opera set.

Besiktas itself is a lower-middle class suburb bordering on the Bosporus. Traditionally an Armenian and Greek immigrant area, the eagle which is the symbol of its football club is everywhere.

The supporters meet in the Merkez Square before every match and they would willingly invite every one of the 500 Leeds fans who will come here for the return match in three weeks' time for a friend-ship drink.