The gravel pitch at the Luxol Ground in St Andrew's has been replaced by a lush green carpet after the club's administrators pressed ahead with their ambitious plan to install an artificial turf surface at their 11-a-side ground.
With preparations for the inauguration of the upgraded pitch next Friday now in full swing, the Board of Directors at the Luxol Sports Club yesterday invited the media to tour their new football complex.
The walkabout followed a short news conference during which the club's top officials, namely, director Norman Darmanin Demajo and Pippo Psaila, the technical director who is perhaps more renowned for his prominent post as Director of Sport of the Malta Olympic Committee, gave details about the latest project.
Completed at an estimated cost of Lm350,000, the Luxol Stadium is the "realisation of a dream for the Luxol Sports Club", Darmanin Demajo said.
"We have put in a lot of hard work to reach our objective," Darmanin Demajo added. "In the competitive sphere, Luxol do their best to participate with honour but it's a known fact that our top priority is infrastructure.
"We prefer to invest our resources in sporting facilities, something we have been doing for a long time. It was back in 1991 when Luxol opened the first five-a-side synthetic pitch in Malta.
"Viewed amidst the green five-a-side pitches, the whiteness of the 11-a-side stone pitch made for a painful sight but that is no longer the case now. Luxol has gone green!"
The floodlit 101m by 62m pitch will provide a safer surface for more than 540 youngsters enrolled with the Luxol nursery as well as their first-team players to train on.
Luxol are also willing to entice other local sporting organisations to use their new ground with Darmanin Demajo revealing that they have already initiated discussions with the Youth Football Association (YFA) to add the Luxol Stadium to the list of official venues for the coming season.
"Young footballers will surely benefit from playing on artificial turf surfaces rather than hard pitches," Darmanin Demajo noted.
"We want the Luxol Stadium to become a hub of youth football activity and to this end, we have already begun talks with the YFA."
The advanced artificial turf pitch at the Luxol Ground has been installed by Steel and Fence Limited, local representatives of FieldTurf, the world-renowned manufacturer of turf surfaces.
Fr Hilary Tagliaferro, chairman of the YFA whose association with the Luxol Sports Club stretches back several years, will inaugurate the new ground on Friday evening.
Competitive action on the new pitch will start on Saturday with the opening matches from the first in a series of four youth tournaments spread over eight days.
"These tournaments are an integral part of the activities marking the inauguration of the new pitch," Psaila remarked.
"We have expanded these tournaments to cater for different age groups - U-10, U-11, U-13 and U-14. The emphasis will be on having fun through participation because the culture within the Luxol Sports Club is centred not only on winning.
"Education and participation through sport are two pillars of our philosophy.
"We are extremely proud of the fact that we have a fully qualified coaching staff at Luxol, including former national team and youth coaches and ex-national team players."
A game between Old Stars, a team made up of players who turned out for Luxol at some stage during their careers, and a selection of current Luxol St Andrew's players, will follow the opening ceremony on Friday.
There will also be a match between Luxol's U-16 team and the Malta U-15 side.