Volume Six of this work by Maltese football historian Carmel Baldacchino covers the period between 1969 and 1979. This work, which is planned to go to ten volumes, is recognised by the Malta Football Association as its official history. This monumental work is also sponsored by the Association.

This volume goes through in minute detail the Seventies when the game in Malta went through one of the most turbulent periods in its history.

The Sixties were exciting years for Maltese football. They were years of plenty brimming with nostalgia for those lucky enough to have lived through them. The Seventies however, was a turbulent period in the history of our National Game.

The stars of the Sixties had faded or were in the last throes of their career. The trouble was that very little, if any, new talent was coming forward to fill the void left by the old-timers. The game became sterile and the number of good matches in a season could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Yet, the Seventies did have their occasional bright moment. There were Malta's great games against England, Greece, West Germany and Sweden at the Stadium, but these bright spots were few and far between.

The Seventies was the last decade to be played completely at the Empire Stadium. The old ground had long been dying a slow death. Years of neglect had reduced it to little more than a ruin. Criticism of the ground came from far and wide. Its notorious hard pitch was not suitable for our domestic competitions, let alone for international events. The incidents which occurred in 1978 during the international match between Malta and Turkey gave fuel to those in FIFA and UEFA who were lobbying to have international football banned from the Stadium.

More trouble was brewing when towards the end of the decade, the MFA found itself in a dilemma. For the first time since the amalgamation of the MFA with MAFA in the Thirties, the Council was faced with a serious challenge to its authority. This challenge came from the newly-founded Ministry of Sport.

The Seventies were very poor years for Maltese football. The standard of the game dropped to alarmingly low levels and the attendances at the Stadium reached an all-time low. The humiliating results of the National Team made it obvious that something drastic needed to be done.

The MFA was the first to admit that the game needed to undergo serious surgery if it was to survive, but it was not prepared to surrender any of its authority to its rivals. On the other hand, the newly elected Socialist Government, like many of its counterparts in Europe was determined to give Maltese sport a push forward. It was prepared to go to any length to achieve its aims.

Taking the initiative, the Ministry of Sport started to organise its own competitions without seeking the blessing of the MFA. This was the start of a long-drawn-out dispute between the two parties.

During season 1977-78, the Ministry organised the 'Football for All' competition, open to all teams without exception. A large number of teams accepted the invitation and to accommodate all of them, the Ministry had to make use of all the grounds at its disposal. Matches were played daily at Marsa, Santa Lucia, Siggiewi, Floriana and Manoel Island football grounds. This left the MFA with only the Stadium and the Schreiber at its disposal. Therefore, the MFA had to suspend its Under 23 leagues. This move on the part of the Ministry continued to widen the gap between the two bodies.

It was now an all-out war between the two parties which suffocated the last couple of seasons of the Seventies. This ugly situation however, had a silver lining. When the dispute was finally settled in the early Eighties, the Ministry of Sport took it upon itself to build the National Stadium at Ta' Qali.

The new Stadium replaced the Empire Stadium as the venue of Maltese football and paved the way for a new era in the history of Maltese football.

In this volume, the author has captured those great moments and this will surely revive many fond memories to those who still remember that glorious era.

Once again, as in the first five volumes Baldacchino has kept his story in chronological order. The book is divided in four parts:

 

         Part 1:             Football in Malta

         Part 2:             The National Team

         Part 3:             Foreign Teams

         Part 4:             The A-Z of Maltese Football

 

While Parts 1 to 3 give the story of what was happening in Maltese football during the period covered by this volume, the narrative is supplemented by a huge amount of statistical data which makes this book a must for all football lovers.

Part 4 is a true encyclopaedia of Maltese football in that it lists all events, competitions, players, referees, coaches, officials, Maltese and foreign teams and football writers of the era.

 

The book, published by Horizons, is available from all leading bookshops in Malta and Gozo