Message from the President

by Karm Galea - 30th April 2010

I would not be surprised if many of you would tell me that, like me, you are still breathless after our game against Hibs, last Sunday. It was a game of many different chapters. Our captain started by scoring a brilliant goal after which we had two great chances which might have closed the game, but which we unfortunately didn't capitalize on. Then Hibs scored four goals in quick succession after which many people had given up on us winning the game. However, when Sylvano Comvalius scored our second goal at the end of the first half my hopes, and probably those of many other people, went up. I believed that we could do it if our players found what was needed to improve on their first-half performance. Liverpool did it against AC Milan when trailing 3 - 0, so why couldn't we? And we did.

We have quite a few things to learn from this game. The most important one is that in a match of 90 minutes many things can happen and, therefore, we must NEVER give up. In particular, in situations like this we have to realize that our players would need more encouragement from our supporters even though, understandably, they maybe disappointed by the team's performance so far. Here I must express my sincere thanks and appreciation to those many supporters who stayed on to continue supporting our boys last Sunday. On the other hand, I am extremely disappointed with those few supporters who couldn't control their anger because we were trailing 4 - 1. Their behavior was despicable and aside from giving the Club a bad name, their actions also resulted in the Club having to pay a hefty sum to the MFA for the damage that these "supporters" made to the stadium facilities.

If you wish to support 'the Stripes', then I would personally ask that you support the team also through the bad times, not just the good. Losing Games is also part of winning Leagues .

As you all know, our next game on Friday against Tarxien is a difficult and tricky one. Although we have never lost against this team, every time we played Tarxien they gave us a very hard time, even when we beat them. Although I have great faith in our lads to put on a good show, I know that things can go wrong at some point or other of the game and this is where we have to control our anger, our disappointment, our emotions and, last but not least, ourselves. If we have such a situation in the game we have to make a great effort to give our full support to our players remembering that we are the twelfth player and, as the twelfth player, we cannot take part in the game on the pitch but our contribution to our team is through continuous encouragement and support to our lads. Shouting and insulting (God forbid) any of our players in a situation like this can only contribute to building more pressure on our players, which I'm sure you'll agree, is hardly going to help them turn a losing match around. A perfect example is the last match that we had against Tarxien when we managed to score three goals after being 3-1 down, and finish the game in a draw, helped through support from the terraces. Against Hibs we also had a similar situation in the second half where we pulled the match back into focus. In both cases we, the supporters, kept encouraging our players and this created a substantial positive psychological effect on them.

Finally, I ask you all to encourage more friends, family and other 'Karkarizi' to come to the match on Friday to help us make this season a memorable one that we can all be proud of. I'm sure our team is going to do its best to make our town proud so the least we can do is that we all go to Ta' Qali to give them the support they deserve. Let's just enjoy the game and hope for a positive result, thereby securing this league with one game still to play, so that afterwards we can celebrate 'bil-kbir, fil-wied, kif nafu ahna!'

comments powered by Disqus