John Consiglio writes:

It is not in the hundreds, but in the thousands, that stands the number of people, and especially youths, to whom Caesar Scerri did good during a life that was, as some sportsmen would have it, a really good wicket.

For most of us who for many years saw him hard at work in his aquatic love, i.e. the Barracudas Sports Club in Saint Pauls Bay, Caesar Scerri was the livewire of the club for a full 17 years as its president. But the truth is that Caesar was much more than that.

A lifetime in the public service saw him retiring as Director of Agriculture. In the early years of that working life he played football for Floriana FC.  When he stopped playing he remained in football helping the game as much as he could. For the MFA he spent many years on the disciplinary, protests and other boards.

In the Amateur Swimming Association he sat for many years on the council.  And then of course in St Paul’s Bay he built up a strong and thriving club, his beloved Barracudas, that not only made it, albeit for a short time, to the local First Division, but even up to today still brings its former glory players regularly together to play and also, at around Christmas, swim for the Malta Community Chest Fund.  In winter too Caesar would strongly encourage many of the members to take part in regular weekend football encounters.

Ceasar Scerri was a paragon gentlemen. I don’t think he really knew how to ever be angry with anyone. When he worried he did it in silence. And I know he did love silence and quiet, perhaps as best exemplified in nature.  Nature, especially the sea, was for him God’s greatest gift to mankind. 

After retirement he would, together with another great Barracudas stalwart Joe Saliba, go out to fish in the bay’s beautiful waters very early in the morning in their small put-put boat.  On their way back, at a time in the morning when most of us holidaymakers in the Steps and Stella Maris Street would still be asleep, they would toil up those streets in whispers not to waken anyone up. But later in the day they would then often share their catch with this or that family with beaming smiles. 

The old card-playing groups at the summer club are now no longer.  Those poker teams with the likes of Caesar, the old Grixti, Ferrante, Saliba, Degiorgio, and others were a source of endless jokes and stories that gave merriment even to us who would just sit watching round their table, even if we couldn’t tell an ace from a queen of spades. 

With Caesar one more of that era leaves us to now just dream and reminisce. He will be very, very sadly missed.  To his sons and their families our sincerest condolences and promises of prayers for his soul.

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