In the meantime, football may have saved Kucukandonyadis's life in 1955, when Turkish mobs -- angered by the fake news reports that the house where Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was born in Greece, had been bombed -- rioted against the Greek minorities in Istanbul, causing vast damage to their property from which the community never fully recovered.
S druge strane, nogomet je Kucukandonyadisu možda spasio život 1955. godine, kada su turske mase - razljućene lažnim novinskim izvješćima o bombaškom napadu na kuću u kojoj je u Grčkoj rođen utemeljitelj suvremene Turske Mustafa Kemal Ataturk - pokrenule napade na grčku manjinu u Istanbulu, uzrokujući goleme štete njihovoj imovini, od čega se ta zajednica nikad nije u potpunosti oporavila.