Founding family · Karabağlar tribe
First muhtar family
The Erdoğdu family includes Mehmet Erdoğdu, Mesudiye's first documented muhtar (1939-1943, with a second term in 1947-1948). The family was also part of the 1980s Mesudiyespor football roster.
The Erdoğdu family is a lineage that has taken a pioneering role in both the administrative and the sporting history of Mesudiye. The village's first muhtar (village head) came from this family during its process of formal institutionalisation; decades later, the family's younger generation became captain of the village's football team. The first muhtar and the team captain — two generations, two separate forms of leadership.
Mehmet Erdoğdu went down in village history as the first official muhtar of Mesudiye village. Taking office at the first election in 1939, Erdoğdu is the architect of the institutional infrastructure that formed the village's administrative identity.
First term: 1939–1943 — 4 years
Second term: 1947–1948 — 1 year
Elected muhtar a second time and serving in the years 1947–1948, Mehmet Erdoğdu renewed the people's trust and led the village's institutionalisation during the early Republican period.
The year 1939 is the period in which the village administration system settled in Turkey and villages were recognised as official administrative units. Considering that Mesudiye is a muhacir (migrant) village founded by the 1907 migration, the election of the first muhtar represents the moment the village was fully incorporated into the official state structure. That the first muhtar in this process came from the Erdoğdu family makes the family's pioneering position in the village concrete.
The Mesudiyespor of the 1980s is the period in which village football lived its golden age. The most important name of this period is the team's captain, Zeki Erdoğdu. Captaincy, beyond leadership on the pitch, is a position of responsibility and representation in village society — just like the role his grandfather took on as muhtar.
Under Zeki Erdoğdu's leadership Mesudiyespor lived through a legendary period in which it beat long-established clubs of the region such as Karamanspor and Başakspor. Considering the village's small population, these successes clearly reveal the abilities of the team and its captain.
Alongside Zeki Erdoğdu, the Mesudiyespor squad also included players from the Gönen, Say and Evgin families. As captain, Erdoğdu is the man who united players coming from these different families under a single team spirit.
The Erdoğdu family's role in the village shows itself in two different forms of leadership in two different generations. While Mehmet Erdoğdu took charge of the village's official administration in 1939, decades later Zeki Erdoğdu carried the same tradition of leadership on in the village's football fields.
Among the village's 54 recorded surnames there is no other family that has produced both the first muhtar and the captain of the football team. This twofold leadership clearly reveals the Erdoğdu family's unique position in Mesudiye's history.
1939–1943: Mehmet Erdoğdu — in office as the village's first official muhtar
1947–1948: Mehmet Erdoğdu — muhtar for a second time with the people's trust
1980s: Zeki Erdoğdu — Mesudiyespor captain, leader of the golden age
As one of Mesudiye's 54 surnames, the Erdoğdu family has taken the lead in both the civic and the sporting sphere. The village whose first muhtar came from this family saw, decades later, the captain of its most successful football period come from the same family as well. This continuity shows that the family's leadership role in village society was passed on from generation to generation. Like the other muhtar families Say, Gönen and Tezcan, Erdoğdu too is one of the cornerstones of Mesudiye's community structure rooted in the Karabağlar tribe.