Peter De Cesare Era (Part 2)

“Blasting at Exiles” read a minute notice on the Times of the 28th July 1988. “Blasting of underwater rocks will take place at the Exiles Sliema today between 8 and 11.30 am. The Public is asked to keep away from the area”.
They were the preparatory works for the construction of the long awaited Clubhouse. The acknowledgement number for the Club’s initial application for the building permit was72/87 whilst the permission number was 87/72 what a coincidence!! A fifteen-year spell to see our dream come true.

In the meantime, the team was preparing for another tough campaign in the First Division. The squad had been strengthened thanks to a system introduced by the Swimming Association of the loaning between clubs of up to a maximum of three players. Edward Calleja, Simon Zammit, Conrad Grima and Simon “Sussa” Camilleri had joined the team which introduced club products Nicky Soler and Peter Apap. The previous year’s league winners Antoine Sciberras, Stephen Paris, Robert Ellul, Andrew Borg, Simon Bianco, Denis Attard Bondi, Raphael Micallef Trigona and player-coach Peter De Cesare formed the rest of the team.

The performances varied - the Press also noticed this alternating effect by the Exiles Team. The debut against Valleta (3-9) was described as a fighting one with the team suffering from the jitters of meeting stronger sides. Two defeats were subsequently suffered at the hands of Sliema (5-14) and Sirens (8-14) to arrive at a crucial match versus Marsascala, the only team having more or less the same amount of guns taking into consideration the disparity existing at the time between the first five teams and the bottom duo. Both matches were indeed close with the first encounter going Marsascala’s way (3-5). The next three matches were formalities for our opponents as the team was still demoralized however Peter had made constant use of the whole squad for experience.  In a way playing in the top division without any excessive pressure knowing well enough the strength of your opposition, makes in my opinion the players perform better. The next set of matches leading to the do or die match against Marsascala were encouraging indeed; Sliema beat us 10-4 and an erratic Sirens edged Exiles 8-4 in a close finish. Our big match versus Marsascala was a very close encounter which ended in dramatic fashion when Exiles were defending a one-goal lead, survived a last minute temporary expulsion in the last seconds and managed also to block a last gasp shot by Scala in a man-down situation, when the Italian referee “invented” an non-existent penalty (by our Robert Ellul) which our opponents converted when time was up. The drama continued when both sets of teams were ordered to leave the water (as contemplated by the rules) except for the penalty thrower and Antoine Sciberras. It was dark by the time the match was over. During this ordeal, the vociferous Marsascala supporters showered the Exiles’ players and other members on the bench with spit. We prayed in those seconds for Antoine to save the team to force a decider; however it was not to be and the match ended in a draw for Marsascala to maintain their two point advantage over Exiles. In the fracas which followed, Simon Bianco ended up reported and eventually got a one match ban. I will never forget the look the Italian referee gave me when he remained baffled after on the pool deck, I gave him a piece of my mind in his mother language for his behaviour. In our next encounter, Exiles did give B’Bugia a good run for their money to run them close (5-11) in a depleted side that battled till the end of the third session to finish still on the losing side as our chances of surviving the drop were evaporated. 

This was a prelude to the following year’s success on 1989 when Exiles were strengthened further by Colin Gambin and Mark Sultana to carry off the Second Division League title unbeaten losing only one point to their nearest rivals Barracudas in the first round. There was no doubt that having made use of the bulk of the previous year’s team, Peter De Cesare had used the experience in the top flight to win convincingly another honour. The two league titles and one year in the first division within the space of fours at the helm were quite rewarding for him at his first coaching experience outside the Sliema camp.
This win also meant that Exiles had once again the opportunity of playing in the First Division the following year. As we will see in the next article, events took a twist and turned in a different manner.