Appreciation: Samuel J. Nicholl

The death of Sammy Nicholl is in the majority being rightly lamented by all within the local football community. But Sammy was more than only a footballer. He was also a very competent member of the banking community, and although I too greatly admired his will-o-the-wisp on the field abilities of hoodwinking even the closest of defending adversaries, and making or scoring goals, for me he was a close professional colleague who had a most successful career.

From St Aloysius College Sammy joined Barclays Bank. During his early years in that job, he was evidently only concerned with putting in his daily bit at the office and then rushing off to football training with Sliema Wanderers, and his always widening circle of friends and acquaintances. Not for him were the late Louis Galea’s continuous insistence that we all take our banking exams.

But the thing was that everything he left after him at the office was done to simple perfection. And this factor soon came to be noticed as he grew older and ever more immensely popular with customers. He was excellent in developing human relations and had this great knack of dissolving even tough office situations, not to say a great customer gatherer for his bank (Barclays) even from the bank’s competitors.

Sammy had a great sense of method and organisation. I worked with him when he was in charge of the Accounts Department at Merchants Street, Valletta branch, and briefly later when he headed a new section, responsible for Collections from bad borrowers in Head Office’s Advances Department.

And, indeed, many such “bad debts” ended up being fully recovered through Sammy’s belief that regular visits to such customers, even to be repaid small amounts, would positively serve unblock dire situations. In later years Sammy was a very popular manager of the bank’s branch at Balzan, and that branch he developed very successfully.

Sammy retired from the bank as assistant general manager at Head Office. Inevitably football then again came to the fore in his life, this time as a media pundit. But he remained also very fitness conscious. We would often bump into each other in early mornings during his runaround, later walkaround, here in the Lija, Balzan, Birkirkara environs, but, I distinctly remember, he would insist that such chats would be kept short because of what he used to describe as “disrupting the necessary body momentum in the exercise”. Indeed, a perfectionist right to the end.

Sammy was a great personality, and with a big heart full of respect for everyone. He now enjoys merited eternal rest in the afterlife, and to his family go my deepest condolences. It is a great feeling in life to be able to say that such wonderful people make it all worth it.