Friday 18th January 2014 ko 20.15

Malta Youth League Section B

ST VEMERA LIGHTENINGS 0

SABBAR ST PATRICKS 8 (J C Cesare 2p 19 20 Fava 39 41 50 Diacono 43 Vello 60)

Att 13

At Sirens Stadium (Sirens FC), St Paul’s Bay

Entry €2.50

No Programme

So dear reader, if you’re the kind of person who absolutely has to have a programme with every game you attend, or hates artificial pitches, or won’t watch a game unless the home side is the ground’s owner or anchor tenant, then I have a feeling that much of the next 6 articles are going to make you wince. But this is Malta, and they do things very differently here, and for the most logical of reasons.

It should come as no surprise that the idea of this trip came once again from Andy. We’d paid Hungary and Spain visits at the back-end of 2013, but Malta looked different to the extent that I remembered the great Del-Boy line from Only Fools & Horses, when he and Rodney were trying to flog ski jackets,

“‘All this equipment is manufactured by the one country that leads the world in Alpine clothing – namely, Fiji.’

I was intrigued when Andy invited me, and continued to be as we flew Air Malta from Gatwick, re-learning packing with a hold-baggage allowance, and how to eat an in-flight meal with our elbows tucked in, just like on package holidays I’d been on in the 1980’s. It was a pleasure to fly and that’s something you don’t hear very often these days.

There are no trains in Malta, the single line from Valletta to Mdina closed in 1931, although that didn’t stop the Italian Air Force claiming to have destroyed the entire network 9 years later! The islands, of which just 3 are inhabited, are covered by a fairly comprehensive bus service. We paid €6.50 for a week’s pass for Malta, and a daily pass on Gozo cost €1.50. The buses were a real icon of the country, with their self-employed drivers using a variety of cannibalized vehicles. That ended in July 2011 when Arriva won the tender to run the system. The new vehicles are efficient, Andy and I did find the displays inside showing what the next stop is useful, but a large bit of the country’s heritage has undoubtedly been lost.

We spent the first 3 days of our stay in St Paul’s Bay, in the north-east of the island. It’s long since merged into Buggiba and is almost entirely a tourist resort designed to attract the British tourist attracted by warm weather, 3-pin plugs, and driving on the left. Virtually every café offers fish and chips, gassy beer, and the full English breakfast. 88% of the population speak English too.

It attracts pensioners to the warm winters, and sat at breakfast each day in our hotel Andy and I marvelled at the lack of ambition of many residents. The sausages were prodded with suspicion, and the box of teabags and a mug from home was chosen ahead of anything the hotel could provide. Many did not leave the hotel for the duration of their stay. What they’d have made of the two interlopers who they only ever saw at breakfast I’m not sure.

That said, we had very little distance to cover for our first game, the ground being a 5 minute walk away. Sirens’ ground is typical of what you’ll find in Malta, just the one viewable area, split with sections for each team’s fans with a VIP and press area as a buffer zone inbetween. Later in our visit I asked why stadia were designed like this. The answer is that it’s a logical answer to a country of only 121 square miles, with a population of 450,000. Space is at a premium and with a 4 division, 53 team league, attendances aren’t likely to be huge. There are many more teams than grounds, so games are often played in pairs, one after the other. That and with water being at premium means that many grounds have been converted to 3G artificial pitches.

There was no danger of the ground’s capacity being reached for this game in the second division (of six) of the youth league. Just a few parents, a young German hopper called Dirk, and two English eccentrics! I’d like to tell you that the scoreline was harsh on St Vermera whose men play in the bottom tier 3rd division, but Zabbar whose men play a division higher, could and should have got double figures.

Two hat tricks told its own story, and at the final whistle the Lightenings scuttled away quickly, leaving Andy and I to sneak on to the pitch to get a decent picture or two of the stand, before retiring to join the more adventurous pensioners, at the bar opposite the hotel. A pub quiz was just finishing but there was bingo to come…..