Last week, we saw how there was a severe increase in the number of sporting organisations that were formed in Malta and Gozo after the country’s Independence in 1964.
However, as the years passed, local sport administrators gradually started to take the upper hand and, in fact, by the time that the British Services departed from Malta in 1979, a good number of associations were thriving.
Yet the greatest boom of new national sport associations was to be witnessed over the next 20 years until the dawn of the new millennium.
It is to be noted that during these two decades the impact of British involvement subsided as the Maltese took the initiative and also roped in foreign assistance from mainland Europe and away from the continent.