I was amongst the thousands of football enthusiasts which filled every nook and corner of the old Empire Stadium in 1971 when ‘a bunch of Spanish waiters’, as our national team was described by the English press, met 1966 World Cup winners England.

In those days, I was serving in the RAF and, when the news emerged that Malta were drawn against England I was having a drink with Malta’s centre-half Eddie Darmanin. 

Darmanin went mad with joy when he heard the news. He expressed the feeling of every player in the national squad with his leaps of joy as one does not always get the chance of playing against England at Wembley.

The MFA and the Empire Stadium management saw this match as a perfect chance to fill their coffers.

Plans were made to improve the Stadium pitch and to increase the ground’s capacity.

The MFA appointed Carm Borg as national coach and embarked on an ambitious training programme for the squad.

No event in the history of Maltese football has had such a tremendous build-up as the meeting between Malta and England in 1971.

The Maltese in their majority support British clubs and in the past, such famous clubs as Manchester United, Ipswich Town, Chelsea, Norwich and Portsmouth had all made historic visits to the island.

Only one thing was missing. Never in the hundred-odd year history of the game had a British representative side visited the islands.

This was something which every Maltese enthusiast instinctively waited for.

Football in Malta had progressed a lot from the days of the Mile End.

After the country’s independence, the MFA was affiliated with UEFA and FIFA. The pupil had become a fully-fledged citizen.

All that remained, now, was the ultimate test against its former master.

I remember ħ clearly the great wave of enthusiasm which hit the island in the summer of 1970 when it became known that Malta had been drawn against England, Switzerland, and Greece in the European Cup of Nations.

The hour of truth, arrived on Wednesday, February 3, 1971.

For days on end the match against England was the centre of conversation.

All tickets were sold out well before the match, and the police in an effort to prevent the congestion of traffic that was expected, declared the area around the Stadium as a car-free zone.

The occasion was so big and the demand for leave was so great that the Government decided to give a half-day holiday.

The match was scheduled to start at 3pm but the gates were thrown open at noon.

I remember, that I left home with my brother-in-law, Mario Azzopardi at 10am to avoid the traffic and leaving our car at Gwardamangia and walked to the Stadium.

On the way we met throngs of people making their way to Gżira on foot.

The buses worked overtime, while cars converged on the Stadium from the remotest parts of the island.

Two hours before the start of the match the ground, which at the best of times could hold about 15,000 spectators, was already packed with more than 30,000 feverish supporters.

It was a long wait but the crowd soon found ways to while away the time.

They pelted the English cheerleader with oranges and chanted offensive slogans against the British.

No one could really blame them considering the offensive remarks which appeared in a section of the British press against the Maltese.

The match has since become part of soccer history. It is common knowledge how the Maltese rose to the occasion, holding the mighty English team to a narrow 0-1 defeat. 

A lot has been written about this match, and  it is not my intention to add to this volume.  It is enough to quote a few paragraphs from the British press the next day.

The English reporters all agreed that England were outplayed by an inspired bunch of  part-timers in the first half and were not much better in the second half.

The British press said that the 30,000 crowd, with thousands more crowded on the balconies of nearby houses, took some beating. They set off firecrackers and pelted an English cheerleader before the game. And they chanted ‘We are the waiters.....’ when England came out.

Then they booed every England mistake and jeered every pass back.

Malta’s slick passing began to click, and when England scored it was against the run of play.

Norman Hunter gathered the ball on the edge of the area, passed or perhaps miskicked to Peters, who hit a left-foot grounder shot which bobbed on the sand before creeping inside the diving Freddie Mizzi’s left-hand post.

England endured a scare when Louis Arpa headed towards goal and Emlyn Hughes belted the ball away.

But Malta’s best chance came shortly before the end of the game came when Joe Cini, all alone in front of Gordon Banks, saw his shot being saved by the goalkeeper.

The next day the Maltese and English headlines were all for Malta. 

It was a great moment which has never been repeated. 

February 3, 1971

Empire Stadium, Gżira

Malta 0
England 1
Peters 34

Malta
Alfred Mizzi; Louis Arpa, Anton Camilleri, Joseph Cini, Ronnie Cocks, Edward Darmanin, Joseph Grima, Alfred Mallia, Emanuele Micallef, Eddie Theobald, Willie Vassallo.

England
Gordon Banks; Paul Reaney, Emlyn Hughes, Alan Mullery, Roy McFarland, Norman Hunter, Alan Ball, Martin Chivers, Joe Royle, Colin Harvey, Martin Peters.

Referee: Ferdinand Marschall (Austria).

Linesmen: Josef Bucek (Austria), Johann Swoboda (Austria).