Goalkeeper Kelinu Aquilina, affectionately known as Il-Boqqa, was born in Ħamrun in 1925. He learned his football in the rubble strewn streets of his locality.

At the time, Ħamrun Spartans were not active, therefore, in 1941 he joined Valletta Swifts.

Competitive football was at a standstill but with the Swifts Aquilina played many friendly matches between the bastions of the city.

Although rather short and tubby, he was surprisingly a very reliable goalkeeper. His natural skills and agility soon caught the eye of a member of a Floriana FC committee member who took him to the suburb.

During the war years, Aquilina played for Floriana with the minors team and occasionally for the senior side in friendly matches against Service XIs. These, however, were rare occasions because the Greens, like many other league clubs, were in hibernation at the time.

In 1944-45, when the competition was resumed, Aquilina finally made his league debut for Floriana. However, he played only three games before deciding to join the newly-formed Ħamrun Liberty side.

It was in 1944 that a certain Anġlu Farrugia, who had a cobbler’s shop near the Mile End Sports Ground, decided to form a team.

He brought together a group of youngsters who were always playing football near his shop and formed an amateur club with the intention of taking part in MFA competitions.

This was the birth of Ħamrun Liberty, a club which was to play a big part in the revival of football in the town after the war.

Liberty were admitted to the MFA League and placed in the Second Division. Season 1945-46 was a particularly happy one for the club.

The team missed promotion by a whisker but became the first Second Division club to reach the FA Trophy final.

They lost in the final to Sliema Wanderers but the club then earned promotion by default when St Joseph’s, of Msida, retired from the league, thus leaving a vacant place in the top flight.

Aquilina was one of the heroes of that famous Hamrun Liberty team.

Top-flight matches

Between 1946 and 1953, we find him playing in the First Division with Ħamrun Spartans who had inherited the place won by Liberty in their promotion year.

Aquilina, at times, had to make way for other more flamboyant goalkeepers but he always won his place back in the team.

He may not have been the best shot-stopper around but there was no one more loyal to his club.

In the eight years he spent with Ħamrun, Aquilina won the championship (1946-47), Cassar Cup (1948-49) and the ‘B’ Edition of the Scicluna Cup (1950-51).

He was also selected once to play for the Malta FA XI in a Christmas Tourney.

In 1954, like many young men of his era, Aquilina was bitten by the emigration bug and left for Australia. He settled in his new home but he never forgot the island and his beloved Ħamrun.

He returned many times to Malta for his holidays and one could always find him at the Spartans’ club sharing memories with other old-timers of that great post-war era for Ħamrun.

Aquilina died in Australia, in 1984, aged 59.