It is always sad to see a great club down on its knees, although in football this happens regularly.
Traditions count for nothing in this game and when a big club hit a bad patch, then everything seems to go wrong. An example of this is St George’s.
Once the pride of Cospicua and Maltese football, the Saints began a downward slide in the mid-1950s from which they found it more and more difficult to recover and return to their former glory.
Two other examples, although not as obvious, are Floriana FC and Ħamrun Spartans. These two great clubs have, for many years, been playing second fiddle to teams with little or no tradition in the annals of our game.
I confess that I have a soft spot for St George’s, possibly because my mother’s family was from Cospicua originally and also because I feel that they have never been given the credit they deserve.
Cospicua was the breeding ground for some of the greatest players in our league but, since the war, the club somehow never managed to hold on to their talented players long enough to make an impact on the game.
One league championship and two cup victories are all St George’s have to show for what they have done for Maltese football.
The period 1958-1963 can serve as an example of St George’s inconsistency and, perhaps, lack of ambition to really make it to the top.
I remember the team of that era quite well and would not hesitate to name it as the best St George’s team of the post-war period.
In 1958-59, the Saints walked away with the second division, playing the kind of football rarely seen at the stadium and a look at a typical line-up of that team showed a crop of players who were the envy of all other clubs.
Players like Ellul, Frendo, Mizzi, Scerri, Schreiner, Mifsud, Ciantar, Scicluna, Cuschieri and Stivala were all first-class performers but the stars of that fine team were Freddie Delia, Eddie Mizzi and Peppi Delceppo.
Back in the top league in 1959-60, St George’s went through a very good season, finishing in a healthy fourth place in the final table. The highlight of their season, however, came in the Christmas Tourney against crack team ASK Grazer.
Playing with their traditional zest and enthusiasm, they beat the Austrians 1-0.
The vital goal came from an Eddie Mizzi penalty.
The next season the Saints kept up their good form, finishing fifth in a season in which the Blues were never in relegation trouble.
It seemed for a while that the good old days of the Cospicua club had returned.
They certainly had the credentials but the following year, the Saints failed once again to sustain their progress.
In fact, season 1961-62 was a poor one for Cospicua. They only managed seven points from a possible 28 and only avoided the drop because that year only one team was relegated.
What can one say? The players were there and they certainly had the potential to go places.
However, the old problems cropped up. Delia was transfered to Hibernians with whom he won two championship medals and Mizzi left for Sliema Wanderers.
One by one the other players abandoned ship and the year that followed the Saints lost their top-division status.
The club entered a rut and the same old record would be replayed over and over again... the team would win promotion only to be relegated again after a short stay in the top division.
By the end of the 1960s all the players of that fine team of 1958-1963 were gone except for Delceppo. He remained loyal to the club, filling any position in which he was needed.