OUR FOOTBALL – down for the count … and out?
If there is a subject I know something about, it’s Association Football, a sport I have been following for 68 years, as an enthusiastic three-year-old boy being taken to the old Gzira Stadium to cheer on Sliema Wanderers FC, perched on my father’s shoulders.
When I was just seven we went to live in London and I experienced teams I used to hear my father mention frequently, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and many others. Spending 15 years in London before returning to Malta I saw these London teams and many others like Manchester United and Liverpool, going to one football stadium or another (Highbury, Stamford Bridge etc) every Saturday throughout the season.
With the increased popularity of television I also became familiar with the great Real Madrid, Benfica, Milan, Internazionale, Juventus and crack international teams like West Germany (then), Hungary and Brazil.
The highlight came on 22nd May, 1963 when together with my late mother Pauline and my brother Edward we were at Wembley Stadium to see Milan win an early European Cup by beating Benfica 2-1 with two goals by Jose’ Altafini. We were seated near the dressing room tunnel and I managed to obtain the signature of Trapattoni and a number of others.
I was literally football crazy, continually watching, playing and dreaming football at every possible moment. I played football for all my school house teams and the official school team at Under-13, Under-14, Under-15 and First XI levels, winning house and school colours at every level.
We returned to Malta for 30 months between 1956 and 1959 and I also became fired up by our Maltese football, our Sliema duels against Floriana and Malta’s early international matches. I was always at the Gzira Stadium every Saturday and Sunday.
I returned to Malta permanently in 1965 and secured my first job on the Sports Desk of the “Times of Malta”, assistant to the legendary Sliema Wanderers and Pick Malta international defender Robbie DeCesare, a position I took over from the great billiards and snooker player Wilfrid Asiak. I was there for five years
Not seeing any great future (then) in Maltese journalism, I moved into HR Management but still played amateur football for a number of teams made up of friends, where we played as a hobby.
Later, I became the first-ever full-time Administration Manager of the Malta Football Association for two years, followed by a five-year stint as Treasurer and then Secretary of Hamrun Spartans FC in their hey-day under the legendary Victor Tedesco and later still spent 25 years as PRO and Publications Editor of the MFA under the presidencies of Dr George Abela and Dr Joe Mifsud.
So, I think I do have a pedigree in football in its every aspect.
It is therefore with a very heavy heart that nowadays I see the continual and daily decline of our Maltese football. Football is our national game and is still fantastically popular – but this is mainly reserved for … foreign teams. Maltese football fans annually spend hundreds of thousands of euros to travel to watch football in Milan, London, Torino, Manchester, Rome, Liverpool, Munich, Madrid and Naples, BUT would not go to see a match in Malta even if they were paid to do so!
Fair enough, we have never aspired to win the World Cup or to see one of our teams win the European Champions League and have always maintained a sense of perspective that our human resource in football is very, very limited.
However, in the past we did our best to hold our own and to uphold our reputation. Nowadays, all is lost.
Our last three international games, including our 5-0 debacle yesterday against Finland, following a 0-1 home defeat against Luxembourg and an earlier 0-3 home defeat against Estonia means we have conceded three defeats, suffered nine goals and not scored once. Let’s face it, our three victors are not exactly in the Blue Riband zone of international football! Our dismal situation reached rock bottom a couple of years back when we lost to Gibraltar. Need I say more?
Our club football level has slumped and slumped as have attendances. It has become a miracle to record that a local club game between highly-rated teams would attract a crowd of beyond 2,000. Contrastingly, our clubs spend thousands of euros annually on the import of foreign players – but with what return?
Youngsters are still interested in the game and club football nurseries are bursting with boy, girl and youthful players, BUT, heading exactly where?
It seems to me that our ladies playing football give much better and more stable performances and our international football has been totally eclipsed by Rugby Union, Waterpolo and a number of other sports that perform and achieve results with great honour.
Live television screening of matches from the English Premier and Italy’s Serie A clash with our local matches and let’s face it, how many would prefer to go to the Ta’ Qali Stadium when they can comfortably stay at home and watch Manchester United vs Liverpool, or Juventus vs Inter?
Our football is in an enormous crisis, sinking daily into a bottomless pit from which recovery seems remote, not to say impossible.
ALBERT JEROME FENECH
