Ħamrun’s two rival band clubs will turn the town into seas of red and blue today as they celebrate the feast of St Cajetan. 

The town has been decorated with banners and statues for several days as marches and concerts took place in the locality.

But it is this morning’s march that will attract most festa goers to Ħamrun. 

“It is probably the biggest march in Malta,” Alex Vella Gregory, a Ħamrun native and researcher, said. 

The blues make themselves heard, in this 2019 photo. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

“Ħamrun is not known for decorations or fireworks, but it is known for its party atmosphere,” he said.

The St Joseph band club, known as Tal-Miskina, and the St Cajetan band club, known as Tat-Tamal, take off from their clubhouses at the same time this morning. 

The two clubhouses are only some 200 metres apart. 

Tal-Miskina and Tat-Tamal revellers, dressed in blue and red respectively, will march to their rivals’ clubhouses as they jump and sing to their marching band’s tunes and taunt their rivals, Vella Gregory said. 

The reds play to the crowd. Photo taken in 2018. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

The two bands will then continue their march back to their home turf as they bring the march to its riotous conclusion.

“A barrier of police officers keeps the two bands separate,” he said.

The two band clubs are bitter adversaries and in 1987, for example, festivities turned violent as “rival band club supporters – and possibly rivals in politics –  clashed in a battle during which a large number of bottles and stones were thrown”, a Times of Malta article from the period says.

The article, dated August 10, 1987, says that over 30 were injured in the Ħamrun band-march “disturbance”. 

“Statues of angels on the sides of the street were pulled down and broken,” the article says. 

“The feast decorations never returned to what they used to be before 1987,” Vella Gregory said. 

People from Ħamrun hate it when people come to the festa for political reasons

The clashes came during heightened national political tensions soon after the Nationalist Party had won the 1987 general election. 

In general, the blues of Tal-Miskina are associated with the PN, while the reds of Tat-Tamal are associated with the PL. 

But much of the feast’s politicisation is not coming from Ħamrun residents, Vella Gregory says. 

“Everyone knows that in 1987, it wasn’t people from Ħamrun who started the fighting,” Vella Gregory said. 

A Times of Malta article reporting the 1987 clashes at the feast of St Cajetan. Photo: Times of Malta Archives

“People from Ħamrun hate it when people come to the festa for political reasons,” he said. 

Vella Gregory, who identifies with Tat-Tamal, said that the two band club’s supporters actually have a very good relationship. 

“We’re used to going to the other band club after the march,” Vella Gregory said. 

“Even though I wear red, I never had any issues,” he said. 

“There are a lot of misconceptions that do not hold water,” he said. 

The ideal vantage point, away from the street mayhem. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Vella Gregory said fights do happen at the festa, but often they are the result of personal grievances being aired between members of the same club. 

“There is a sense that Ħamrun is forgotten throughout the year, so when the festa comes, people want to celebrate,” Vella Gregory said when asked why the Ħamrun festa attracts so many people and so much passion.

Ħamrun has issues with integrating with foreign communities, problems with drugs and alcohol abuse, an ageing population and many young people who are leaving the town, he said.