Melita F.C.

Melita Football Club has been founded on the 28th April 1933 at the first general meeting by Sur Gian Bencini who was elected the first president of the club at this meeting. The cardinal points in its first statute were that the club will have its base in St. Julians, will have an “Amateur” status, that the original colours will be red and white and the mottos of the club would be “ Play the Game for the Game’s Sake” and “The Game first and Foremost”. Any or all of these points could only be changed by an unanimous vote at an Extraordinary General Meeting called for such a purpose.

The club has been affiliated to the Malta Football Association since the 23rd April 1944 representing the locality of St. Julians to date and as well to the Youth Football Association since the early nineties.

The club takes part in four different categories all within the Malta Football Association – The Senior Team which will be playing in the Premier Division this season 2012/2013 after having gained promotion last season, the Youth U/19 Team which will be playing in Section “B” this season, the Ladies Team which is now also starting to accommodate children for its nursery, as well as a Futsal Team also playing 5 a-side football. The long serving President of the Club, Anton Naudi, who has been at the helm these last 26 years since 1983 when Melita were also in the First Division, has stepped down from the Presidency and his place has been taken over by a younger person, Paul Zammit, who has just been elected as the new President in the club’s last Annual General Meeting of June 2009 and who himself has also been attached to this club since his playing days and whose father served the club for many years in the past as its treasurer. There is also a new Secretary, Matthew Naudi, Anton’s son and also a former stalwart with the club, Alfred Zammit, who has also served the club for many years and has replaced Oliver Lautier as the club’s representative on the MFA Council and John Naudi as Vice-President, also an ex player. The treasurer remains the same, Joseph Borg. The club also boasts of a fully fledged coaching and technical staff. All this makes our AMATEUR club being run and managed on a “professional” basis The club is still to date registered with the MFA as “Amateur” and still embraces this policy and belief to date. In fact, all the club’s players, coaches and administrators give their loyal and dedicated service to the club on a voluntary basis. Our “Amateur” status had been threatened some years ago, in the beginning of the New Millenium,, when UEFA decided that all football associations registered with it should have its clubs playing against a licence issued with UEFA regulations and criteria. This meant that Melita could ONLY keep its prestigious status up to Second Division level. Further up from here UEFA would have asked for a semi-professional status. So, the committee at that time prepared a well laid out and organised request to the MFA not to lose this status. After many meetings and serious considerations, MFA decided to grant the club a “ONE TIME LICENCE” allowing us to retain our “Amateur” status permanently. This could only be achieved as a result of our club’s well known image and so a milestone in our history was registered.

The club’s Nursery was set up in 1989 by among others, Anton Naudi & the late Oliver Lautier but has embarked on a development programme in 1998 when ex players of the club like Robert Balani and Peter Galea and others took the job in hand and today it is regarded as one of the top nurseries in Malta. The nursery caters for boys from the age of 4/5 till the age of 17 in line with FIFA & UEFA schemes, after which they will join the Senior sector for participation in the Youth and Senior teams. We have presently about 380 children registered. All the age groups participate in various and several tournaments both locally and abroad while the most senior two categories take part in the U/15 and U/17 Leagues organised by the Youth Football Association within the MFA.

Although the club has won many an honour since its foundation, the greatest of all still remains the famous 4-0 victory by the club over the well known Sliema Wanderers in the FA Trophy Final in 1939 and, by so doing, has inscribed its name among the many famous local clubs in this prestigious competition. The second biggest success in the club’s history was precisely registered in season 2008-2009 when we won ALL the four competitions in our Senior Sector which the club was participating in, namely the Runner-Up position in the Second Division which meant automatic promotion to the First Division and winners of the 11/111 Division K.O. Cup for the Senior Team and champions of Youth Section “B” which meant promotion to Section “A” and K.O. Cup Winners of Youth Sections “B”, “C” and “D” for the Youth U/19 Team. This success has never been attained by the club before and has also never been achieved by any club member of the MFA competing in all the competitions at stake in one season. The third biggest success emerged in season 2012/2013 when the club will be playing Premier Division football for the first time in its history.

The club can also today boast of one of the best sports complexes on the island which know its origin in 2002 when our administrators came up with an ambitious idea to construct a couple of 5 a-side pitches with high quality artifical turf. At that time, such pitches were only dreams in Malta but we had this foresight and, after careful and professional study of feasibility, we opened our first 2 pitches which could convert to one 7 a-side pitch complete with all round fencing, floodlighting and other amenities on the 23rd May 2004. At a later stage we also embarked on further development and a 50 space car park, additional dressing rooms and an outright conversion of our full size gravel pitch into a super artificial surface pitch known as FIFA 2 Star, which is the nearest to actual turf complete with lighting of the highest standard and FIFA approved steel surround all along the perimeter were brought to mind for discussion. Eventually all this was constructed and were officially inaugurated on the 27th April 2008 along with a restructured block to house a snack bar/restaurant and a committee room, two lovely well sized terraces, a children’s playground, kit room and more dressing rooms. The club is now also boasting of having the first ever Children’s Gym in Malta and this is already functioning along with an adult gym both lying underground and housing the most modern and efficient equipment.

Although the club’s registered place is in St. Julians where the committees meet regularly, the sports complex is situated in Pembroke as it was never possible to have such a complex constructed in the urban locality of St. Julians, obviously due to lack of space required for such a place. However, notwithstanding the club is in St. Julians and the complex in Pembroke, the club still accepts children and teenagers and adults from any locality around Malta to form part of it.

Apart from football, the club has also its own Table Tennis Section and its first team is competing admirably in the First Division of the Malta Table Tennis Association.