During the Industrial Revolution, the UK became a mecca of sports and Britons abroad, whether as colonisers, missionaries or merchants, took their ‘games’ with them

Malta’s transition from colonial status to complete independence in 1964 was achieved in a most edifying, civilised and democratic way not only because of the political maturity of our statesmen, the strong connection with the British navy and innumerable mixed marriages but also because of the socialising power of sport which the British cultivated as soon as they set foot on our island.

When on March 31, 1979, the last British frigate, HMS London sailed out of Grand Harbour, as it steamed past the Vittoriosa Marina, memories of the affection for the navy were openly displayed by tears and cheers from the people of Vittoriosa recalling the halcyon years when British naval personnel proudly donned the football jerseys of iconic St George’s of Cospicua and Vittoriosa Stars.

For veterans of my generation, the last vestige of the mighty Mediterranean fleet evoked nostalgic memories of the Corradino Roar on Saturdays as it reverberated through the narrow streets of Vittoriosa, especially when the Royal Navy locked horns against a Malta XI on the smooth ‘red’ football ground on Corradino Hill. Nor do I forget the witty quip expressed when the ball soared high with shouts of “Keep it on the island”.

A drawing of a Fleet Athletic Meeting at the Marsa Sports Ground that was published in the British weekly illustrated paper The Graphic in 1881.A drawing of a Fleet Athletic Meeting at the Marsa Sports Ground that was published in the British weekly illustrated paper The Graphic in 1881.

This last departure was to me – as Shakespeare writes – “such sweet sorrow”. HMS London brought back moments of my stiff encounters on the Marsa athletic track when I represented Malta in the 880 yards against naval athletes representing the Mediterranean fleet when “Britannia ruled the waves”.

The Freedom Monument at the Vittoriosa Marina is enough evidence of this cordiality which was recently rekindled when Prince William visited and was warmly welcomed by the victorious city.

The emergence of the sports phenomenon in Britain owes its genesis to the Industrial Revolution in the last decades of the 19th century when Malta was already firmly established as a crown colony.

Britain became the mecca of sport and Britons abroad, whether as colonisers, missionaries, explorers or businessmen, took sports with them. This explains why rugby is played in Argentina: it was introduced by British merchants in search of lucrative business in meat extracts. In India, they introduced cricket. At the same time they adopted polo and snooker as their own.

This burst of sports activities captivated the noble highly elitist British public schools like Eton, Rugby, Harrow, Charterhouse and many others. These schools introduced games for the development of character and personality, inspired by the ethos of English educator Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School which epitomises the British sportsman.

In Britain, sports and physical recreation were immediately adopted by religious institutions with the motto of “muscular Christianity” – sports as a means to promote Christian values as evidenced by the great Scot runner Eric Liddell with his devotional utterances such as “God made me fast; to run is to honour Him”.

Liddell’s outstanding run at the Paris Olympic Games of 1924 is immortalised in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire with symbolic music by Vangelis.

The idea of the sports club, a British invention and, until the middle of the 19th century, exclusively the domain of lords and nobles, was completely shattered with the effects of the Industrial Revolution. This created a new middle class plus the nouveau riche who sent their children to these elitist public schools that fostered a true love of sport and sportsmanship.

When the public school students entered tertiary education, the navy, army or commerce, the old boys introduced the new games to their colleagues, employees and their neighbourhoods. The whole of Britain was captivated by this new ‘discovery’ as all games were codified with new rules and regulations. This gave uniformity to the vast varieties of ball games practised throughout the land and adopted on the continent, thus starting international tournaments with the aim of promoting understanding across countries.

Through the stationing of the Services on our island, Malta came to host the first overseas playing fields of the British Empire

While on the European mainland, the Germans, the French and the Swedes were busy studying, analysing and dissecting sport from the philosophical, anthropological, educational and scientific point of view, the British were ‘inventing’ rules and regulations for almost all team games played nowadays – from football to athletics, tennis, cricket, rugby and polo.

Malta has the second oldest polo club after India and the first polo club in Europe. Polo was introduced locally in the late 19th century when troop ships returning to England from the Indian sub-continent made a coaling stop in Malta and the troops played Polo Gymkhana at the expansive Marsa grounds.

Royalty’s connection with the Malta Polo Club goes back over 130 years. Furthermore, until 1985, royalty assumed the honorary presidency of the Marsa Sports Club, the bedrock of Malta’s came to host the impeccable lush turf of the golf course and cricket grounds, as well as the tennis courts and the many sports amenities enhanced by an elegant colonial-style club house, are a great credit to Malta and the energetic organisers and committee of this ancient institution.

England became the ultimate land of sport and, through the stationing of the Services on our island, Malta came to host the first overseas playing fields of the British Empire. So ingrained was this British sporting culture in the local collective consciousness that in the pre-war years of the 1930s in the pro-British Cottonera area, it was widely assumed – albeit wrongly – that only English-speaking athletes could scale Olympian heights in sport.

The Malta waterpolo team at the Amsterdam Olympic Games 1928.The Malta waterpolo team at the Amsterdam Olympic Games 1928.

The impetus sparked by the Industrial Revolution and its relative wealth were felt throughout Britain as the different Christian churches jumped on the sports bandwagon. Under the banner of ‘muscular Christianity’, they were in the forefront of this massive sports movement, becoming the focal point for the formation of sports clubs, mainly for the working classes.

In 1871, the Methodist Church in Malta, mainly through the good services of Rev. John Laverack (1848-1926), a devoted and assiduous missionary, on the suggestion of the Governor, invited the Blue Ribbon Branch of the British Temperance Movement to Malta in order “to serve as a counteractivity to the wine shops and low houses of entertainment in which the neighbourhood abounds” – the localities being the Cottonera and Floriana areas where there was a concentration of troops and sailors.

The strategy adopted favoured the introduction of physical recreation for all in the form of rambling, cycling and football, activities associated with the Muscular Christianity Movement. Their mission statement was the promotion of Christianity through sport.

The Temperance Movement took no time in setting up a Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home in Piazza Filippo Sciberras, formerly known as Piazza Maggiore, in Floriana. It was a progressive organisation intent to formulate “a framework of respectable leisure activities for British servicemen, other expatriates and interested Maltese”.

In 1882, encouraged by the success and popularity of the Floriana club, the Temperance Movement set up a second Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Rest in a rented house in the vicinity of the naval dockyard in Cospicua, and then moved to bigger premises on Santa Margherita Hill, popularly known to this day as ‘Ir-rest’. Until recently, it was the official premises of St George’s Football Club which owes its origins to the early British period.

Besides obsession with football in Cottonera, the fascination with rambling lingered on in ancient Vittoriosa until the pre-war years. I vividly recall the organisation Marchin’ Out which was led by British expatriates living there.

A cursory glance at Maltese journals published in the late 19th century suffices to reveal the different sports and games organised by the British Garrison (army and navy) throughout the Maltese islands: from cricket in Delimara, athletics in Fort Chambray (Gozo), golf in the Floriana ditches and swimming lidos in Ricasoli, St George’s Bay and Sliema.

In 1881, The Graphic of London published an interesting drawing of the obstacle race of the Fleet Athletic Meeting at Marsa.

It also appears that cycling remained very popular in the late 19th century. It is safely recorded that in 1896, the year of the first Olympic Games, the Buffalo Bill Circus was set up at Qui-Si-Sana in Sliema with an exhibition of horsemanship and the organisation of bicycle rides that were extremely popular for Maltese and others. This sporting location is also etched in Malta’s sporting history as it was from the Sliema Point Battery (Il-Fortizza) overlooking Sliema waterpolo pitch that the first spark of Olympic participation was ignited.

After the turbulent years of the late 1910, Lord Plumber, a sport addict, assumed the governorship of our islands. So impressed was he by the swimming skills of our waterpolo players that he set the ball rolling for Malta’s participation at the Paris Olympics of 1924. Plumer’s torch was successfully carried by the newly set-up Olympic Committee, supported fully by the British Amateur Swimming Association ASA, when Malta was accepted in the Olympic family and participated in the Amsterdam Games of 1928.

My generation of post-World War II students, brought up on the ethos of Thomas Hughes’s 1857 Tom Brown’s Schooldays and that immortalised the great headmaster of Rugby School Thomas Arnold, could not fail to notice, understand and applaud the growing cult of athleticism and sense of sportsmanship emanating from the Harrow song Forty Years On with its famous lines: “Strife without anger; and art without malice.”

Sadly, at a time when sport has lost its innocence and an air of cynicism engulfs us all, sportsmanship and fair play seem to be museum pieces swamped by deceit and corruption in the highest echelons of sport.

May the British sporting legacy and tradition inspire the younger generation to actively participate in sport and physical recreation in the highest degree of sportsmanship and avail themselves of the ever-expanding sports opportunities and facilities in the Maltese islands.

Lino Bugeja is a former honorary general secretary of the Malta Olympic Committee and a Commonwealth scholar between 1960-1961.

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