Peter De Cesare Era (Final Part)

Exiles have to forfeit the referees fees amounting to Lm 770.00 and play in the second division with a condition that if they win the championship, they will not be promoted. This is the punishable decision taken by the Amateur Swimming Association when they were informed by Exiles that it was physically impossible to field a competitive team in the first division. It also meant also a total revision of fixtures.

This stab coincided with the official opening of the summer club premises held on the 29th June. Works had commenced a year earlier in May, with a lot of effort being made by the Committee. Maybe it could have been one of the reasons why less attention was given to the first team in its preparation for another challenging season. It must be pointed out that the Committee had managed to lease out a basement in St Vincent Street Sliema where appropriate gym equipment had been installed for the players to make use. Martin Gauci the Secretary at the time was instrumental in the design and manufacturing of the equipment. The official opening had been made three years earlier. These premises served the club as winter premises and were utilized for a few years before returning the keys to the landlady.

Attendance at training sessions had been for some reason poor and this annoyed Peter as he could not get the team together. I remember that as soon as the decision was taken by the Committee to withdraw from participating in the first division in the first week of June, the players started coming back to train. It was a sort of relief for them that they would be spared a beating from the top clubs. Not only that happened; other players joined like Edward Fenech who contributed towards more punch in the attack. And Simon Stilon an experienced utility player on loan from Neptunes. Other new faces included goalkeeper Michael Scerri (ex Barracudas) and Steve Agius from Sliema.

The Committee tried using legal methods to at least get a refund of the referees’ fees but to no avail.

The team started the campaign with three straight wins against Otters, Ta’Xbiex and Marsascala considered one of the main contenders. An unexpected defeat (6-9) against Barracudas created a situation whereby the latter joined to form the trio for the final contention.
The team went on to win the next set of matches with last-second of the match efforts which smiled in our favour. Nail-biting matches against Barracudas (7-6) and Marsaxlokk (9-8) were both preludes to a championship decider against Marsascala. In the second round the encounter ended in a drawn affair (7-7) after Exiles were trailing for most of the match. When Peter De Cesare took the water in the last two quarters, the team changed gear and managed to take the lead before Alex De Raffaele scored his fifth goal against Exiles that day to equalize and force a decider. Both teams had their chances with Exiles missing a golden opportunity when they failed to score a man-up situation seconds from the bell. Marsascala went to win the eventual decider (5-4) and promotion by scoring the winner 21 seconds before the final whistle. So close and yet so far.  In the knock-out competition, Exiles easily disposed of Ta’Xbiex (22-8), beat Barracudas (8-7) but once again lost to Marsascala (5-6) to end the season empty handed.

Peter called it a day and as we shall see the following year in 1991, Exiles appoint another coach Alfred Cachia who also hailed from the Sliema ASC clan. 

Did you know that……….

Apart from George R Frendo who was the first Exiles coach, Vanni Bruno and Charles Grixti were the only Exiles’ members to take the  arduous task of coaching the first team. The Maltese coaches subsequently appointed by the Committee either played for or coached other clubs.

From Neptunes came Edward Xuereb, Bertie Portelli and Joe Chetcuti. Paul Dowling had played for Balluta (now San Giljan) and Valletta before retiring. From Ghar id –Dud Sliema, came Peter De Cesare, Alfred Cachia and Marco Manara. Joe Sciortino who played as a goalkeeper for Valletta was Exiles coach as we will see in a later article. Harry Cutajar also a Valletta stalwart, had a very short stint at Exiles before being substituted by Dirk Dowling who made his debut with the City team and went on to play for San Giljan and Sirens.