When the Baltic Airlines plane carrying the Hamrun Spartans players, officials and supporters was on its way back to Malta, it passed a stone's throw from the Ukrainian border.

It probably also passed this way to get to Ukraine on its way up.

Probably too it passed equally near the border with Belarus but, not having watched this, I cannot assert it.

What I mean is that those on the plane must have been either exhausted and sleeping, or else they were still celebrating. I can guess they had no idea of where they were at that time and the danger they could have been in.

Anyway, they landed safely in Malta and were welcomed by a sizeable crowd of raucous, jubilant supporters who had foregone sleep to celebrate this miracle of Hamrun moving up the European football stakes.

Unknown to them, a plane silently landed just behind them. This was a KM plane coming back ... from Lourdes. 

It was a plane seeking a miracle following another plane with a miracle on board.

Fortunately too it was not deemed important to get attention from most probably Russia and get its GPS incapacitated as happened to the plane carrying Ursula Von Der Leyen while it was over Bulgaria. The pilot had to land the plane relying on paper instructions rather than on electronic means.

Let me now pass on to another subject but still with a Hamrun angle to it.

After leaving Latvia and bypassing Belarus and the Ukraine, the plane entered the Hungarian airspace.

Now we may not be au courant with what is happening in Hungary. One development which is literally changing the face of the capital is what is known as the Hausmann Project.

This is systematically taking what remains of the old royal palace and the centre of the capital, which was mostly damaged or destroyed in World War II, and then either neglected or rebuilt according to Soviet style in the ensuing years, and now restoring them to their original glory.

With this Hausmann Project the Hungarians have been taking one building after another in this central area and restoring them to their original splendour. Four or five buildings have been restored to their original splendour and the result is simply amazing.

While here in Malta we have the ruins of the old Royal Opera and it is still in ruins.

To add insult to injury the most pro-Western government turned it into an open-air concert space and where the air used to hum with operatic arias it now makes do with modern ditties.

This is not only the sorry fate of Valletta, about which more must be said, but also about Hamrun.

For many years I have been arguing about the need to resurrect the palace in High Street next and part of the Ta' Nuzzu church, which has been split into two houses.

At least recent news said that an application has been registered to turn the oldest building in Hamrun, what is known as Il-Palazz, into a boutique hotel. 

This building is said to still show bullet-holes from shots fired by the French troops behind Portes des Bombes at the Maltese troops stationed around Il-Palazz and the Atocia (Atocha) church.

I tried to find out more about restoration projects being carried out by Heritage Malta but unfortunately this was rather sparse when I know more has been carried out.

To conclude: the way to success may well be that undertaken by Hamrun Spartans but it may also be that being undertaken by Hungary.

A note of history 

Malta in the 9th and 10th centuries

By Nathaniel Cutajar

In Archeologia Medieval 2018

A study of the archaeological remains found at Mdina and Safi. Two very different contexts.