Cimbom

Cimbom, or Cim Bom (pronounced "JIM-bom") is the nickname of the Turkish football team Galatasaray SK.

[edit] Origin

Nobody exactly knows the origin of this word. But there are some urban legends:

In the past, there was an American (or English) boxer, whose name was Jim (Turkish Cim) and who played for Galatasaray sports club. After a game against Fenerbahce, where Galatasaray won 2:0 and Cim scored twice, journalists asked him: "Cim, how was it like?", and Cim answered: "You know... It was like... Cim... BOM... BOM!" Since that popular media event, Galatasaray fans started to call their club Cim Bom Bom or sometimes just Cim Bom.

A Galatasaray player moved to Switzerland for a few years and later came back, bringing with him what Swiss fans chanted: something like "Cimbom, Cimbom". In time Galatasaray started using it.

In front of the Galatasaray High School, French girls were selling sweets. They couldn't speak Turkish very well, so they were mixing Turkish and French. When talking about sweets, they might have prefer a word inspired by French: jelibom. The word would have been modified and became Cimbom. (Though Turkish later adopted jelibom, as jelibon). Or alternately, the girls were saying "j'aime bonbon" or "I like candy".

On an early school trip of the Galatasaray High School to Switzerland, the students learned a Swiss football chant with the lyrics "Jim, Bom, Bom" and took it back with them to Istanbul. The song stayed with the team to this day and earned them their famous nickname, Cim Bom.

Old Turkish alphabet (ottoman language) contains 2 letters equivalent with 2 letters in present Turkish alphabet. they were gim (g for present) and se (s for present). If you check carefully the old symbol of galatasaray team then you'll see old letters.

There may be more legends, and still nobody exactly knows the story of Cimbom.

Galatasaray S.K.

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