Football in Malta : when the ball started bouncing

Abstract

Being amongst those who have seen and followed with so much passion and ardour the game in its infancy, one is amazed at the popularity this football game has now attracted. A following, universal in its concept, from East to West, from North to South, there is hardly a country where the pull of soccer is not acknowledged. The lure of the ball that gleams, that bounces, that glides so expertly from skillful feet, is so great that the whole world seems to stop when the World Cup matches are being played. It has been estimated that over two billion people watched the last series, gathered round the television boxes, or, the most favoured few who packed the stadium absorbed into the atmosphere of frenzy, tension and passion which this game generates, leaving in its wake the dejected loser, the triumphant winner, and the great many others who love the skill, endeavour and the various twists of the game for the game's own sake. What a far cry when one kicked a rag ball in a ditch, or on a deserted patch of ground, with a sound beating at the return home for time wasted and for the costs of mending torn shoes. It is about all this growth from a tiny tot-size to the present giant that this series will follow, with as much detail as possible, recalling much of the past, of how and when the ball started bouncing on the hard grounds of our tiny Isle, and of the men who played, and who organised what today is the acknowledged national game, both in Malta and throughout the whole world. In passing let one spare a kind thought to those early pioneers who bravely, and so tenaciously, in sowing the seeds did not live to reap the harvest, to see the small plant flourishing into the giant tree it is today.