Six Trophies and a Funeral:
Performance and Football in the City of Valletta
GARY ARMSTRONG
Brunel University
JON MITCHELL
University of Sussex
This paper examines the elaborate celebrations organized by the fans of Valletta
City football (soccer) club, Malta, when they win the Maltese football league.
It argues that these celebrations constitute a continuation of the carnivalesque.
Valletta fans have a reputation for their fanatical support, and are renowned as
tough-guys. Their celebrations are moments of drunken excess, which celebrate
this “diamond-in-the-rough” authenticity, and satirize their opponents, which
they see as inauthentic “pretenders.” The celebrations use symbolism drawn
from an earlier carnival tradition—particularly the symbolism of death, and the
re-enactment of funereal performance. The paper therefore argues that contemporary football celebration has replaced the carnival as a cultural form through
which social antagonisms—of locality and social class—are manifest. The paper
also examines the relationship between these spontaneous celebrations, and
state-sponsored pageants—including the modern carnival—which are primarily
aimed at tourists. [Football Celebration, Valletta, Carnival, Nostalgia, Class].
Not for another 100 years
T
he 2000/01 championship was Valletta Football Club’s eighteenth league title, but was exceptionally memorable for their
clean sweep of all domestic trophies: Championship, Super
Cup, FA Trophy, Euro Trophy and Super Five Cup. They added to
these the Centenary Cup, sponsored to commemorate 100 years of
the Malta Football Association (MFA). Beating their historic rivals
and neighbours Floriana 3–1 in the final, Valletta fans were able to
goad their Floriana counterparts with chants of “not for another
100 years.” The Valletta City whitewash was all the sweeter for
the turn-around the team had achieved since losing the title the
City & Society, Vol. 18, Issue 2, pp. 180-206, ISSN 0893-0465, online ISSN 1548-744X.
© 2006 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to
photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website,
http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/city.2006.18.2.180.
Six Trophies and
a Funeral
previous year to the arriviste new rivals, Birkirkara. Under a new
coach, Bulgarian Krasimir Manolov, they had taken just 12 months
to build a strong, spirited and successful team to match the quality
of their fanatical fans.
In April 2001, the first round of what was to be a month of
football-related celebration took place in Valletta, not far from a
bar known formerly as “The Pub” but now as “Ollie’s Last Drink”
after the British actor Oliver Reed, who slumped to his death there
during an eight-hour drinking session in the company of British
sailors and local Maltese. The celebration party took place at
the same time as the state-sponsored Valletta History and Elegance
pageant: a genteel blend of historical re-enactment and period
performance laid on ostensibly for tourists, but also billed as part
of the campaign to “give (night) life” to the once vibrant but now
nocturnally moribund city. The irony that many of its events were
organized during the day was apparently lost on its organizers, but
not on Valletta’s citizens, who engaged in their own project of lifegiving at this time of celebration. They were familiar with government projects that appeared to ignore the inhabitants of Valletta
in favor of its tourists and other visitors to this UNESCO World
Heritage Site (Mitchell 2002a:50ff). As with other such occasions,
the Valletta celebrants were effectively banned from the city’s central and respectable public squares, and instead toasted their team’s
victories in the topographically and socially “lower” areas1—close
to the city bastions and on the steps of the Siege Bell Monument
erected in 1992 to commemorate 50 years since the award of the
George Cross to Malta—“For Gallantry” and to “Bear witness to
the heroism and devotion of its people” during the 1942 Axis
Siege. As a social and structural opposite of the Valletta History and
Elegance event, the Valletta City victory party was a spontaneous
and joyous occasion—much more in keeping with Reed’s hell-raiser legacy. For over four hours, the revellers drank, sang and cheered
as they listened to speeches celebrating Valletta’s victories, joined
in with popular anthems and laughed as children and adults alike
took their turn at the microphone to perform songs and eulogies to
the city and its club.
Two weeks later, a grand defilé was organized that was every
bit as joyous as the victory party, but surpassed it in the reckless
consumption of alcohol it involved (see Mitchell and Armstrong
2005). It reproduced a processional tradition established in the
early 1940s and appropriated from the pre-Lenten Carnival, at
which large decorated floats with dancers file through Valletta’s
City Gate and into one of its main squares. The Carnival receives
generous state support, and is central to the National Tourism
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City & Society
Organisation’s policy of encouraging off-peak tourism to Malta.
Many of the Carnival artists, who receive state subsidies, are also
staunch Valletta City supporters, and use the Carnival’s low-load
trailers for Valletta victory defilés. Mimicking the Carnival parade,
then, not only reclaims Valletta’s public space on behalf of the citizen supporters, it also effectively appropriates the state’s resources
to generate a performative event more in keeping with the wishes
of the city’s inhabitants.
This paper examines these football celebrations—the party, the
defilé, and a third manifestation, il-funeral (the funeral)—as part
of a wider politics of ritual performance and performative space in
the city. As with the contrast of the Valletta History and Elegance
celebrations and the Valletta City party, this politics pits outsider
events against insider, “respectable” bourgeois pageant against
popular cultural manifestations, and encompasses serial appropriations of ritual form and symbol from a large repertoire available in
the numerous celebrations of the Maltese annual calendar. Malta
is renowned for its staunch Roman Catholicism. Well over 90% of
the population are Catholic, and a large proportion of them are regularly practising. Its strong Catholic history ensures a packed ritual
calendar, with numerous saints’ feasts—festi, (sing. festa)—added
to the regular annual cycle of religious feasts: Christmas, Carnival,
Easter, All Souls etc.
A small island state in the geographical center of the
Mediterranean, Malta has around 460,000 permanently registered
inhabitants, although at any one time there are many more than
this. Serial colonization of the islands since 1530, by the Knights
of St John, the French and the British, has meant that the Maltese
are no strangers to visitors, and many retired Northern Europeans
(particularly British) have taken up residency on the island (King,
Warnes and Williams 2000), together with overseas students, businessmen seeking tax exile and aspirant migrants from various parts of
Africa. Tourism development has been high on the national agenda
since independence from British rule in 1964, and there are currently
over one million tourist arrivals to Malta each year. Since the 1990s
there has been a concerted emphasis on historical and cultural tourism, alongside the more traditional sea and sun package tourism (see
Mitchell 1996). This has meant an increase in heritage-style tourist
museums—with experiential installations and re-enactments—and
festival events, such as Valletta History and Elegance.
In this context, football celebrations are not only for “the
people” but also for “the locals”—celebratory events to which
tourists are not particularly invited, and are unlikely to show up.
They are also events which tourists are unlikely to understand.
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Six Trophies and
a Funeral
Doing so requires an understanding of the various symbolic forms
these manifestations use, and of the historical and social context in
which they take place. The authors have gained this understanding through ethnographic research in Malta over a considerable
timeframe: Armstrong since the 1970s and Mitchell since the early
1990s. This paper forms part of a larger project on the relationships between Maltese football and Maltese society, for which the
authors have conducted extensive qualitative interviews with those
involved in local football at all levels, and have both participated
with and observed football fans as they follow their teams to defeat
and victory. Some of this work has also involved Maltese friends
and acquaintances, who have acted as key informants and/or informal research assistants, giving contextual explanations and translations of particular manifestations or football chants. This long-term
engagement and insider contextualization enabled us to understand
the significance of, for example, writing football-related lyrics to
the tunes of popular festa band marches, dressing up in Roman
robes and armor from the city’s Good Friday procession, and borrowing symbolic motifs from Carnival.
Carnival to carnivalesque
F
ollowing Bakhtin (1984), Stallybrass and White (1986)
argued that with the onset of modernity, traditional Carnival,
as a popular manifestation that subverted the social order
and established morality in a pre-Lenten period of vulgarity and
ribald excess, became occluded. This was partly through its classification by the nascent bourgeoisie as a backward tradition. As
Collier (1997) has pointed out, modernity itself is characterized
by the tendency to identify and classify certain practices as traditional—the better to abolish them, and thus purify the modern
world (see also Latour 1993; Van der Veer 1998; Mitchell 2002b).
It was also therefore partly through direct legislation aimed at
suppressing Carnival:
in the long-term history from the seventeenth to the twentieth century…there were literally thousands of acts of legislation introduced which attempted to eliminate carnival
and popular festivity from European life. (Stallybrass and
White 1986:78)
Bakhtin argued that with this suppression, what he saw as the
genuinely utopian and potentially transformative characteristics of
Carnival were lost. Setting it within the context of the extremely
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City & Society
Where
Carnival
was not
removed by
legislation
it was
substantively
transformed,
through its
standardization
and bureau–
cratization
hierarchical feudal society from which Carnival sprung, Bakhtin
argued that it provided the peasantry with a “second life” (1984:8)
ruled not by landlord and clergy but by laughter. During Carnival,
hierarchy was suspended or even inverted, with the most marginal members of village society being elected Carnival King (see
Babcock 1978). Normal and normative morality was replaced by a
celebration of vulgarity, and the social order was replaced by a different order collectively orchestrated by the people, who through
this established a collective rebellious spirit that held the potential
for radical transformation. Seen most dramatically in Ladurie’s
(1980) account of the late sixteenth century Carnival in Romans,
southeast of Lyons, this rebellious spirit of the Carnival enabled a
utopian vision of social life that “lies beyond existing social forms”
(Bakhtin 1984:280).
Where Carnival was not removed by legislation it was substantively transformed, through its standardization and bureaucratization, which replaced the rebellious and creative celebration with
an empty and ineffectual form that was merely the sterile object
of consumption: “the carnival spirit with its freedom, its utopian
character oriented towards the future, was gradually transformed
into a mere holiday mood” (Bakhtin 1984:33). For Bakhtin,
however, the spirit of the Carnival is never fully obliterated, but
rather re-emerges in other contexts—most notably the literature of
Rabelais—which become vehicles for, and characterized, by what
he terms the carnivalesque. Utilizing the language of psychoanalysis, Stallybrass and White (1986) identify in Bakhtin’s argument
a process of sublimation, wherein repressed, forbidden laughter
emerges in other, more socially acceptable contexts. This displacement of the carnivalesque from Carnival proper has been identified
in a range of other contexts—from modernist fiction (White 1993)
to 1950s comedy film (Sobshack 1996) to the British seaside (Webb
2005). One need not necessarily buy into a psychoanalytic agenda
to observe these processes, though. As Stallybrass and White correctly observe, the evidence for sublimation is less compelling than
the more straightforward observation of historical change:
Bakhtin…does not give us a convincing explanation of
this sublimation of carnival. The social historians, on the
other hand, tend not to consider processes of sublimation at
all…They tend not to believe in the return of the repressed.
(Stallybrass and White 1986:81).
Evidence from social anthropology, however, suggests the social
historians too readily proclaimed the death of the carnivalesque
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Six Trophies and
a Funeral
in European popular culture. Contrary to expectation, and to
the modernist narrative outlined above—which sees tradition
banished from modern life as a backwards anomaly—Boissevain
(1992) identifies a revitalization of popular ritual forms in late
twentieth century Europe. And paradoxically, it is the conditions
of modernity that Boissevain cites as the causes of this revitalization: widespread critique of post-war industrialization; crisis over
the homogenizing effects of globalization; increased leisure time
afforded by new affluence; counter-stream migration from urban to
rural areas; and a liberalization of political regimes in a number of
European states—all contributed to the renewed salience and scale
of popular ritual forms, particularly those that involved ludic, play,
or carnivalesque elements (Boissevain 1992:147).
A short history of Valletta carnival
T
he pattern identified by Boissevain is replicated in Malta more
broadly and Valletta in particular. Moreover, his historicized
account enables us to describe the maintenance and transformation of the carnivalesque in Maltese popular ritual without
necessarily buying into a psychoanalytic account of repression
and sublimation. We are sceptical of psychoanalytic explanations
of sociocultural phenomena because of its assumption that collectivities operate psychologically in the same way as individuals.
To argue that a sociocultural phenomenon such as carnival is suppressed and then revitalized relies on tracing processes of historical causation, rather than assuming repression and sublimation. It
requires careful attention to continuities and changes, and to the
historical contexts of action.
The earliest records of carnival in Malta date from the early
fifteenth century, some 100 years before the Knights of the Order
of St John of Jerusalem were given control of the islands (Cassar
Pullicino 1992:48). During the time of the Knights (1530 to 1798),
it was encouraged by the Grand Masters, partly as it allowed them
to demonstrate their largesse to the Maltese peasantry, who received
meat, sausages and other rich foods, and partly as it allowed them
to organize sporting events—jousting, rowing—(Fiorini 1987) to
entertain the young and energetic Knights, who were prone to
restlessness in their isolated and celibate state.
One of the central elements of the Knights’ period carnival
was the Parata, a sword dance commemorating the victory of the
Knights over the Turks in 1565, and therefore also the foundation
of the city of Valletta. After taking over the islands, the Knights
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City & Society
established their capital in the harbor-town of Birgu, where a
previous ruler had established a fort. In 1565, however, the folly
of this decision was revealed, when an invading Turkish army
were able to set up an artillery battery on the higher ground of
the Xiberras peninsula—opposite the city—and bombard besieged
Birgu. After the siege was lifted, then Grand Master, Jean Parisot de
La Valette, established the new capital on the Xiberras peninsula,
naming it after himself, and then rather perversely equipping it
with the motto Humillima Civitas Valletae—the most humble city.
A purpose-built city, Valletta consists of a grid-iron street system,
running parallel and perpendicular across the peninsula. With its
humped-back topography, many of the streets have steep gradients,
and even had to be stepped rather than paved. A religious city and
a military city—like the Order that created it—Valletta is dominated architecturally by churches and bastions, many of which are
decorated in the ornate style of the Baroque. As the main port city,
it is the axis around which Malta has revolved for several centuries,
as administrative, mercantile and social centre. It is referred to by
Maltese not as Valletta but Il-Belt (the city); its inhabitants are
Beltin or Tas-City (of the city), and its football club ‘the citizens’.
It is also the center of the carnival; and the inextricable links
between the city, its history and the carnival are confirmed in the
carnival practice of Parata.
Parata is a form of sword-dance that commemorates victory
over the Turks, with companies of young men or children dressed
as Christians and Turks to fight a mock re-enactment of the siege
(Cassar Pullicino 1992:49). Cassar (1994) has argued that the
significance of the siege—and particularly its status as an event
bringing together Knights and Maltese—was exaggerated by the
Knights as a means of generating pro-Order propaganda during
their rule. Its centrality in carnival contributed to this propaganda.
Parata was offered by Maltese in return for carnival. To start the
carnival, groups of Maltese peasants would wake the Grand Master
early on carnival Saturday, and ask permission for the carnival.
When the answer came, various companies of dancers would move
through the city performing the mock fight (Cassar Pullicino
1992:49). During the time of carnival, justice was suspended. A
stone or plank was hung outside the Palace of Justice in Valletta,
which impeded the operation of the strappado, which was the
most common form of public justice (50). Crowds of masked or
blackened-faced revellers would run through the streets, blowing on trumpets and whistles, to celebrate this period of excess
(48), and a number of sacrificial and funereal manifestations
were organized.
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Six Trophies and
a Funeral
At the end of the Parata, a small girl dressed as a bride was held
aloft, as a symbol of fertility and the enduring spirit of Malta. Later in
the carnival, a bridal figure was made of pastry, and carried through
the streets by a riotous and drunken crowd who played music and
recited the bride’s marriage deed—in humorous verse—before pulling her apart and eating her in a drunken sacrifice of fecundity
(50). The end of the carnival was marked by another sacrifice—of
King Carnival; a linen and straw effigy that was burned after being
carried through the streets on a trestle, to great wailing and mourning (52). It was also common to organize mock funerals in which a
person would be carried in a coffin, surrounded by mourners, only
to come alive and cause mischief (Wilson 1839:38–40). This funereal motif was to return in the footballing celebrations of the early
twenty-first century, having also been utilized in politically satirical
Carnival floats of the early twentieth.
By the nineteenth century, these spontaneous elements of
carnival were being replaced by more formal processions with
decorated floats. The nineteenth century saw the advent of British
colonial rule (1800–1964) and with it both the increase of elegant
indoor masked balls (Cassar Pullicino 1992:51), and the increased
politicisation of carnival. The mid-nineteenth century saw the
emergence of a new form of popular manifestation—the festa,
or saint’s feast. Present earlier as part of the organized Church’s
calendar of liturgical celebrations, from this time, more elaborate popular outdoor festivities emerged and quickly accelerated
in popularity and scale. Processions of saints’ statues, brass band
marches and lavish fireworks displays became avenues of not only
celebration but also competition between different neighborhoods, villages, parishes and political parties (Boissevain 1965). In
Valletta which was then divided into two parishes: of St Paul and
of St Dominic2, each developed its own festa, with a fierce rivalry
against each other. Each had its own brass band club—St Dominic’s
had the Kings Own; St Paul’s La Valette—which would compete
at band competitions until La Valette commemorated a victory in
the Italian lake resort of Como by commissioning a new banner
to be carried in front of the band. At its first unveiling, supporters of Kings Own intercepted the march and the resulting riot saw
both direct competition and the carrying of the banner, banned.
Each parish had—and still has—its own topographically low areas,
which are also thought of as “rough;” and where young men enjoy
the reputation of tough-guys with a kind of diamond in the rough
character (Mitchell 2002a).
The citizens’ reputation as fighters (gelliedin) was honed in
band and festa fights, but also in violence associated with party
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City & Society
politics, and of course football. Party politics emerged in Malta in
the later nineteenth century under a colonial administration that
allowed representative government (Frendo 1979). Politics soon
became polarized between a broadly pro-British, pro-Maltese and
eventually socialist party and an Italianate party that was Christian
democratic in its approach, and nationalist by name if not always
by inclination. The cleavage between the two became particularly
significant during the so-called Language Question of the 1920s
and 30s, when government was debating the appropriate medium
for education in Maltese schools (Hull 1993). The nationalists,
who historically drew support from the mercantile and professional classes of Valletta—the clergy and the judiciary, both of
which operated in Italian—favored Italian. Their opponents, on
the other hand, favored a combination of Maltese, the local idiom,
and English, signalling not only a pragmatic attachment to the
British colonial administration, but also a deeper appreciation of
all things British, that was later to lead to the Malta Labour Party’s
suggestion in 1956 that Malta become part of the United Kingdom
(Austin 1971).
During the Language Question, the political situation became
so tense that the constitution was suspended. At the same time,
the carnival became regulated. It had become a significant vehicle
for political satire by the anti-colonial nationalists. As a nationalist
stronghold, Valletta provided the labor and resources to build and
man large and elaborate floats depicting the British Governor, and
the leaders of the pro-British Constitutional Party. Photographs
from the era depict floats bearing slogans denouncing British slavery of Maltese, the financial costs of membership of the Empire
and, significantly, the funereal motif. One such photograph shows
an effigy of Gerald Strickland, leader of the Constitutional Party,
holding the lid of a coffin on which is written, in Italian, “After
a century of English domination.” Next to him is the open coffin,
in which a live person, dressed as a skeleton, sits and grins, waiting for his moment to “come alive.” In 1926, this political content
of carnival floats was banned, by an increasingly paranoid British
administration. With the ban was established a carnival committee to veto plans for floats, and much of what older Vallettans still
regard as the spirit of the carnival, was lost.
This much tallies with Bakhtin’s account of the suppression
of carnival, and the removal from it of much of its creative spontaneity. Valletta carnivals have become somewhat staid events;
the more spontaneous masked and blackened revellers have disappeared, as have the ranging Parata troops. Dancing and parading
is now performed to a strict timetable and set of regulations, in
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Six Trophies and
a Funeral
a purpose-built arena close to the City Gate, to a paying audience—largely tourists. The popular spontaneity of carnival has
been replaced by the more ordered celebration of festa which,
despite having extreme moments of celebratory excess—dancing,
singing, drunkenness—does not possess the carnivalesque irreverence and vulgarity. That is reserved for football celebrations, which
have also taken on the sacrificial and funereal imagery now absent
from carnival.
The potency of carnival, for Bakhtin, is the creativity with
which norms and ideologies are inverted. Inversion necessitates
a borrowing, or appropriation, of sociocultural forms—symbols or
forms of performance—a process that is also central to satire. The
same can be said of the potency of Valletta football celebrations,
which borrow from the range of other performances to generate a
particular version of the carnivalesque.
Despite
being Malta’s
administrative
Pride in authenticity—Valletta and its opponents
D
espite being Malta’s administrative capital, Valletta has
declined significantly as a city since the 1970s. With the
withdrawal of the British fleet in 1979, its sailor bars closed
down, and the center for entertainment moved to the tourist resort
of Paceville on the north shore of the island. Valletta has suffered over five decades of outmigration (Sultana and Baldacchino
1994:135–161). Initially this was provoked by a wish to avoid the
bombings of the Axis forces of the Second World War. In the first
months of 1942 Axis forces conducted 263 air-raids over Malta,
destroying more than 11,000 dwellings in the Grand Harbour and
Naval Dockyards area. Then came post-war migration subsidized
monetarily by Government from 1948 via the Emigration Passage
Assistance Scheme. This response to post-war economic stagnation
saw thousands of Maltese depart for Australia, the UK, the USA
and Canada. Further emigration occurred in the mid-1970s when
low wages and high unemployment saw an increasing penetration
of female workers into the labor force and with this geographic
mobility increased (Delia 1994). Many Valletta inhabitants wished
to leave the old and less versatile Valletta housing—much of which
dated back to the time of the Knights—to make new homes in
the villages and suburbs; others were removed under government
regeneration and relocation projects (see Mitchell 1998).
Valletta is thus today a city in name only and has a population—8,000—smaller than many villages in Malta. Still the main
administrative center, and an important shopping centre, Valletta
capital, Valletta
has declined
significantly
as a city since
the 1970s
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City & Society
nevertheless sees upwards of 40,000 people enter the city each day,
on business of various types. Many more than 8,000 Maltese claim
Valletta origins. The scale of outmigration ensures that the “Beltin
diaspora” within Malta is large. The pride with which this identity
is claimed is significant. As suggested above, being Tas-City is seen
as something to be proud of—connoting a certain no-nonsense stoicism and toughness of both spirit and body. Moreover, it is something which unites the various and frequently antagonistic social
groupings within the city: richer and poorer; higher and lower; St
Paul’s and St Dominic’s; Nationalist and Malta Labour Party—all
come together in support of “the citizens.”
In the world of football, bringing together Valletta supporters
inevitably does so in opposition to others. As we have outlined
elsewhere (Armstrong and Mitchell 2001), Valletta’s most significant others have changed over the course of the last century,
as new opponents have risen and fallen. This was related not only
to the threat of stronger footballing opponents, but also to local,
political and social class antagonisms. Thus, their first and biggest rivals were Floriana, a team from the neighboring harbor-side
town that shares its bastions and reputation as a tough sailor town.
Post-Independence, when party politics became vehemently—at
times violently—polarized, Valletta, as a prominent Nationalist
stronghold found new opponents in the Labour-supporting villages
of Hamrun and Paola, whose Hibernians team were fierce opponents. More recently, Birkirkara have emerged as new enemies. As
a club, Birkirkara are regarded as arrivistes—wealthy and flashy,
but without a long-term history of footballing success, and without
the kind of substantial and fanatical fan-base that Valletta enjoy.
As a town, Birkirkara is a thriving and expanding—predominantly
bourgeois—settlement. It is genteel and spacious, while Valletta
remains cramped and shabby—its glory lying mainly in the past.
Birkirkara is the home of a new political elite. Throughout the
1990s, the leaders of both Nationalist and Labour parties lived
in Birkirkara. The Nationalist leader, Eddie Fenech Adami was
appointed national President in 2003 and continues to live
there. Birkirkara, then, is seen by Valletta fans as an impostor
opponent, that has achieved success through political or business patronage. Its fans are seen as imitators rather than innovators—modern fans interested only in their team if it was successful; not the authentic, traditional and die-hard fans that Valletta
enjoy. The rivalry, then, pits Birkirkara’s inauthenticity against
Valletta’s authenticity; Birkirkara’s modernity against Valletta’s
tradition; Birkirkara’s bourgeois sensibilities against Valletta’s
rough-and-ready proletarianism.
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Six Trophies and
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The Valletta-Birkirkara rivalry saved football in the late 1990s
from disinterest and decline. These teams could command the biggest crowds in Malta; Birkirkara because of its large population and
Valletta because of its large and extended fan-base across Malta,
drawn in by footballing success and a reputation for joyous celebration, and the earthy, tough-guy image of Valletta as a whole. The
1996/7 and 1997/8 seasons saw late season championship decider
matches between Valletta and Birkirkara attracting huge crowds—
for Malta. Valletta won both, and the 1998 championship decider
saw a record crowd of 18,000 at the national stadium in Ta’Qali.
In 2000 a new championship format was introduced, with endof-season play-offs guaranteeing footballing drama to the very end
of the season. Despite winning the championship again in 1999,
Valletta failed twice to beat Birkirkara that season, making the
rivalry in 2000 all the more potent. The season runs September to
May, and by January 2000, Valletta had looked like title favorite.
They then played Birkirkara and the teams drew a bad-tempered
encounter 1–1. Four players were sent off from each side. By April,
Valletta’s hopes of a fourth consecutive championship title were
dwindling, and a series of apparently suspicious league results
ensured that Birkirkara triumphed, but with enough tension to
ensure another well-attended final game between the two. First, a
Hibernians team weakened by injury beat Valletta 2–1 on Easter
Sunday, then Sliema—by this time also contenders for the championship—lost to Birkirkara 2–0. The Sliema President publicly
lambasted his players for this “gift-wrapped” Birkirkara victory,
adding that “the team totally disobeyed the coach’s instructions.
Not one shot or goal in 90 minutes from the most in-form team
in the division, with three consecutive victories.” Valletta supporters felt sure that the Sliema players had been bribed to lose,
perhaps along with some of their own players in the Hibernians
match. One important Hibernians player was allegedly offered Lm
4,0003 to play badly against Valletta. His refusal came not out of
morality, it was said, but financial acumen—Birkirkara had offered
him more to play well and win the game. Finally, a Valletta player
was rumored to have been promised Lm 20,000 by Birkirkara if
they won the league. The resulting intrigue ensured that the final
match of the season was something of a grudge match. Although
Birkirkara had already won the title, and for them this was a celebration, Valletta fans were keen to see a fair game, to reassure
themselves that Birkirkara had in fact bought the championship,
and so Valletta could remain moral victors.
Birkirkara fans celebrated with an extensive defilé, which
began mid-morning on the Sunday of the final Birkirkara—Valletta
The VallettaBirkirkara
rivalry saved
football in the
late 1990s
from disinterest
and decline
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City & Society
fixture. It ended around 1am on Monday. The national media provided saturation coverage of the event. On the Friday before the
Sunday game, Smash TV had interviewed players and officials of
Birkirkara. On the day of the game, one TV station and three radio
stations dedicated live time to the journey to the stadium and the
game itself. By 2pm, some 5,000 Birkirkara “stripes” fans were in
the vicinity of Ta’Qali in a flotilla of vehicles, singing and dancing,
and drinking. Articulated lorries were bedecked with effigies, stereo
systems and celebrants. Unroad-worthy cars, painted in yellow and
red stripes, in celebration of the Birkirkara team strip, followed the
procession. Insults to Valletta were painted on vehicles and sung
by the revellers. The late arrival of thousands seeking to enter the
stadium meant that the planned police searches were abandoned
in the crush, and thus many entered holding beer bottles, whilst
others set off petards and other fireworks at will. The game ended
in a 5–1 victory for Birkirkara’s in front of over 8,000 ecstatic fans.
It was Birkirkara’s biggest-ever win over Valletta.
The Valletta fans played their part, chanting repeatedly
“Birkirkara Xejn” (Birkirkara are nothing), and reminding the
jubilant fans of their 50 years of non-achievement. A Valletta
banner reading “Lhaqtu l’Bormla” (You’ve caught up with Bormla/
Cospicua) demeaned their championship victory by reminding
them that their victory was now equal to that of local football
minnows, Cospicua, who had also only won the league once—in
1914. Valletta fans were disappointed at the defeat, but also angry
at the Birkirkara fans’ emulation of their own football celebrations. Rather than a creative appropriation of festive form from
carnival or festa, this was direct imitation. Unable to raise a brass
band from amongst their supporters, which Valletta could do any
time, Birkirkara had obtained special permission from the football
authorities to install stereo speakers in their ranks to aid their
cacophony. When the truck with a p.a. system passed the Valletta
enclosure on its way to the Birkirkara fans, it was met with a hail of
bottles. The songs of Birkirkara, which had their origin in Valletta
celebrations, were met with shouts of “imitators” and “invent your
own.” Even the victory celebrations of the Birkirkara team replicated those of Valletta the previous season—crawling in a line,
imitating a dying fly, synchronized diving. The Valletta fans left
the ground desultory and angry, their mood becoming more furious
as they watched a rival climb a flag pole at the opposite end of the
stadium, and set fire to the Valletta club flag. Police had to restrain
the surging Valletta fans, who fumed at this ultimate insult.
Post-match, the defilé reached central Birkirkara at around
8pm. Around 10,000 people awaited their heroes; women and
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Six Trophies and
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children at the back and on the walls, men and boys in the middle
of the road. The team arrived on the back of a tipper truck ahead
of ten other long-wheel trailers. The jubilation was deafening as
the victors took the acclaim of the band club, which held a banner with the face of Club President Victor Zammit painted on it,
saint-like. The parade ended at the club’s bar above McDonald’s.
Songs continued into the night. Around midnight the only bar
with easy access to a drink was the Labour Party club, wherein a
sole Birkirkara player stood drinking whiskey and smoking, whilst
chatting with a dozen locals.
The personality cult of Zammit was extended the following
Friday evening, when the club held a rally in the village square on
the forecourt of the parish church of St. Helen. Lasting two hours,
the gathering attracted around 1,500 curious onlookers, many of
them families with children, who listened to various speakers over
the p.a. system, as they sat in majesty on the trailer of a truck with
tables and chairs. Meanwhile, a telephone hot-line for financial
donations was set up by the club. Pledges of Lm 10, Lm 5, and Lm
3 were possible. A celebratory CD was soon in circulation with
vocals by an established local singer by the name of Renato, who
sang a line of “Viva Birkirkara, we’ve annoyed Valletta.”
A few weeks later, the man proclaimed the savior of Birkirkara
was rumored to have lost a fortune in a failed business venture. The
club was bankrupt, and internet messages informed readers that, if
they had money and loved Birkirkara, they should come forward
and take over. It seemed the Valletta fans’ view of Birkirkara as
a precarious club, with flimsy financial backing rather than deep
roots in football tradition, was confirmed.
Return to victory—
or “how to have a real defile”
T
he first euphoric parade to celebrate a Valletta victory was in
1943. It was more than just a spectacle. Occurring in 1943 it
was also a response to a call which beckoned back local émigrés who had abandoned their homes because of the heavy bombardments on the Grand Harbour. The parade might also be considered, like the earlier carnival manifestations, an act of emerging
nationalistic defiance in the face of colonial government, and an
expression of triumph of spirit in the face of a reality of a physically
devastated town. Such spirit was embodied in the victory of their
newly formed team, which though just starting out had succeeded
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against the old, established and preferred teams in winning the
championship. Valletta F.C. had been established the same year
when five of the fourteen clubs that existed in the city joined
together to conform to a new Malta Football Association (MFA)
regulation that permitted only one club per town, village or city.
The MFA were concerned about intra-town rivalries, but the move
to “one town, one team” merely shifted antagonisms from within
different towns to between them (Armstrong and Mitchell 2001).
The 1943 victory was over Valletta’s traditional rivals Floriana,
and occurred at the same time the island was recovering from the
Axis bombing of the Valletta harbor area—Malta’s second “Great
Siege.” The elderly of Valletta recall the defilé as an event where
people manifested hitherto unseen elation, which went beyond
celebration of a football victory and was more a re-affirmation of
the vitality of a war-devastated city and population. Following the
match, thousands of fans followed their victorious team back to
Valletta, on foot or on the backs of trucks, many of which also carried brass bands. They shouted, cheered and sang their way back
the four miles from the stadium in Gzira to their bomb-devastated
city. This defilé is now repeated whenever Valletta F.C. wins the
championship. In the early 1980s, the Empire Stadium at Gzira was
replaced as the national stadium by Ta’Qali, some eight miles from
Valletta, but the parade still attracts thousands of Vallettans as it
winds its way back to the capital.
Valletta had won the league two weeks before the end of the
2000–2001 season, and had celebrated royally at the Siege Bell, but
reserved the defilé for the final day of the season. The days between
the celebration and the defilé were ones of frantic preparation by
the fans. Superstition prevented them from preparing in advance
any of the paraphernalia, the Maltese proverb Ahseb fil-hazin biex
it-tajjeb ma jonqosx (Expect the bad so you don’t lose the good)
dictating this relative inactivity prior to the moment of victory.
What onlookers witnessed was not simply a spontaneous expression of euphoria but a measured ritualistic celebration of Valletta
identity, drawing on the traditions and spirit of the carnival to
generate performance that inverts the social order in significant
ways—presenting Valletta fans as heroes, rather than villains of
the piece, and Valletta as triumphant and glorious, instead of the
rather shabby, disintegrating and down-at-heel city that it is. This
is achieved through straightforward assertion, but also through an
appropriation of otherness, particularly the Islamic other to this
staunchly Catholic country.
Whilst the event was undoubtedly determined by football and
took place around the final game of league championship, what
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took place around the game was a spectacular celebration of both
collective identity encompassed within shared perceptions of cultural memory. The constructs that were evident on the trucks and
floats took in some instances two weeks to prepare. Meetings with
the police and the city councillors had to take place to agree the
limits of the possible, be it what vehicles could drive on what street
and what street furniture could be festooned with football ephemera. The Transport Authority had to agree to move dozens of buses
from the terminus immediately outside the City Gate—what was
considered in normal time as a notoriously time-consuming process
was miraculously agreed in double-quick time. The whole nation,
down to its frequently awkward officialdom, wanted to be part of or
witness the Valletta fans’ celebration.
The team’s triumphal return from Ta’Qali reached its climax
with the entrance of the huge trailer holding the players, the
football club committee and the trophy through the City Gate
upon which was a massive reproduction of the Centenary Cup.
The float arrived in a mass of red smoke courtesy of the plumes of
fireworks and petards and a cacophonous rendition of “We Are the
Champions’ via the enormous p.a. system on board. The float was
so high that the fixtures grazed the City Gate ceiling. A retinue of
trucks and trailers followed, ranging from four to sixteen wheelers
bedecked in carnival paraphernalia—papier maché figures ridiculing characters seen as antagonists. Here there was little of the
regulation or restriction that surrounded carnival. Official (club
registered) floats’ themes do require approval from the organizing
committee, but none have ever been refused. Whilst the football
committee warns supporters to refrain from anything that may
portray Valletta in a bad light, this doesn’t not prevent participants
from daubing all manner of insults, nicknames, jibes and insinuations on vehicles and banners aimed at the opposing team’s players, coaches and committee presidents. Recognizable characters
from the football world—who were often also prominent political
actors—were depicted and satirized mercilessly, displaying and
revealing the enduring creative talent and capacity for ridicule and
merrymaking: the carnivalesque. The chosen theme of each float is
written alongside the float, e.g. Kif knisnikom u xkupajnikom (How
we swept you away); and as in carnival, they were signed by their
creators, in the style of works of art.
There were at least 100 vehicles in the procession, some officially part of the proceedings, others not. The celebration had
begun mid-morning even though the final match did not kick off
until 8 o’clock in the evening. Thus, by the time the parade arrived
at the stadium, most people had had a drink or two, and the major195
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Public
drunkenness
was not merely
committed, it
was expected
196
ity could be said to have been under the influence of alcohol. At
this stage, though, there was a sense of moderation and only a few
participants were seriously drunk. The same could not be said of the
same people by 10 o’clock. On the return to Valletta, crates of beer
adorned every truck and bottles of beer were an essential accoutrement to the football paraphernalia worn by every participant.
Beer both local and Belgian—Stella Artois brewery sponsored the
Valletta team shirt—were the essential items of consumption. The
raised bottles manifest on every float were reciprocated by those
following and a shower of beer was not received with anger but in
the spirit of this occasion. Normal taboos about female and children drinking were suspended. Public drunkenness was not merely
committed, it was expected. Behind the defilé a trail of broken and
discarded beer bottles marked the path of celebration.
While the central focus of the parade was obviously the triumphant football team, pride of place on the largest truck was
also taken by club committee members. That said, the boys of the
Valletta nursery team were aboard the first float that entered the
city. Their float depicted the lion of Valletta with his arms around
those in his care on the float. On the other floats the participants
were predominantly male whilst the expectant crowd that thronged
the main thoroughfare of Valletta was mixed—at least 50% female.
This matches the pattern of festa, in which a predominantly male
procession performs to a mixed audience (Mitchell 2002a:233).
The parade headed into the capital with dozens of unofficial
vehicles joining impromptu at the end. Bedecked, graffiti covered
and overloaded vehicles of all sorts flowed into Valletta. It all
came to an end in the Great Siege Square—dedicated to the Siege
victories of 1565 and 1942—which lies at the junction of Republic
Street and St Lucia Street, in front of the symbols of legal justice,
the Courts of Law, and of divine justice, the Co-Cathedral of St.
John. This ending place, appropriately symbolic of victory and
justice, is the closest point to the humbly located and proportioned
Valletta F.C. bar in adjacent St Lucia Street.
It took over two hours for every vehicle to pass through the City
Gate, which meant the defilé proper ended around midnight. The
party continued and by 3 am was centred on the club bar in which
some 300 revellers sang along to songs that blared out from the
p.a. system. The floor was awash with beer, and four players, finding it difficult to stand, heroically continued drinking beer bought
by loyal fans. Outside, a self-appointed squad of responsible fans
gathered debris from the streets to leave them clean for the morning arrival of office workers, shoppers and tourists. The newspapers
reported the collection of three tons of discarded beer bottles.
Six Trophies and
a Funeral
Valletta in song and dance
T
he costumes themselves are almost entirely based on the team
colors—red and white. One float theme featured dozens of
men dressed in sailor’s whites, recalling Malta’s naval colonial
past, but specifically symbolizing the notorious reputation afforded
Valletta by the British Navy. It had been an important sailor town
with numerous bars, night-clubs and brothels, particularly in Strait
Street, know as “the gut”. Now largely closed down, these establishments served the needs of countless British sailors on shore leave
from their ships. Opponents insulted the Valletta supporters by
claiming that Citizens fans are tfal tal-bahrin—sailors’ children.4 By
appropriating this insult, the Valletta revellers were able to turn
their bad reputation into an object of pride, emphasizing not the
anti-colonial elements of their history, but the extent to which the
people of Valletta had stood alongside the British during times of
struggle and victory—the flip-side of Malta’s ambivalent attitude
towards its past (Mitchell 2002a).
Valletta’s past was also evidenced in the costumes worn by a
group of men donning the attire of the medieval knights, reminding all of the noble origins of their town. Another group recalled
past geographic and maritime importance via their pirate costumes.
Clowns were a frequent representation meant to reminding all of
Valletta’s cherished carnival tradition, and their enviable talent
of impromptu merrymaking. A party of women opted for cowgirl
costumes, confirming another generic term aimed at denigrating the
citizens—that of being “cowboys.” The colloquial Maltese phrase,
Kemm int cowboy (What a cowboy you are), usually indicates a braggart, a scoundrel, or incompetence. Other variants on the oriental
or the oriental-robes theme made direct reference to Tal-Palestina—
Palestinians—another one of the many appellations bound to
Valletta repute. Although vehemently anti-Arab and violently
critical of any argument about Malta’s Arab past, the reference
to Beltin being Tal-Palestina, and even dressing in Arab costumes,
again appropriates an image of otherness in pursuit of the tough-guy
image of the citizens’ fans. The unfurling of the flag of Palestine at
games was common, and augmented here by the presence of a float
containing 20 men resplendent in full Arab costume.
Musicians on the main triumphal float don Roman robes
and victors’ laurel wreaths, which immediately establish their
status as one of the primary elements in Valletta’s conceived identity—that of being musically inclined and gifted. This can also
be seen through the presence of many well-known local singers
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and musicians amongst the revellers while the native musician
George il-Pusé Curmi, formed part of the brass band on the main
float. Musically, Valletta fans have a genius for recontextualizing.
Other clubs can only follow and slightly alter the lyrics. As a consequence the Valletta repertoire as evident in the parade includes
samples from Latin America, Mambo, Neapolitan, Italian melodies
old and new, rock anthems and Euro pop. Refrains of “Don’t cry
for me Birkirkara” proved that London’s West End musicals could
be adapted to Maltese antagonisms. The official Valletta football
anthem, Forza Valletta City, is said to have been the first such
anthem in Europe. Composed by a well known local composer,
Willie Arena and written by the poet Scerkarm5, it was penned at a
time when post-war colonial Malta itself was awakening to its own
nationality depicted with fervor in the lyrics. The official Valletta
(Forza) FC anthem makes reference to the mantra Up the Whites,
whilst simultaneously stating Valletta:
Champions of great courage
No wonder ours is a rampant lion
On the loveliest of backgrounds (red)
Valletta we are so proud of you
Because we are the children of Valletta
Not even death will induce us to betray you
Because you are the land we were born in
We cannot help but love you.
Such songs are invariably boasting of heritage, the talent for spectacle and a willingness to be inclusive. The song “Wave the Flags”
(Xerju il-Bnadar) implores listeners to:
Wave your flags
White and red, with the lion at the centre
To make merry and celebrate
Our successful team
Amongst the best Maltese teams around
At the front you’ll find il-Beltin
United by our cheerful band marches
Clap and have fun
Come along and join us
Anyone can join in
Everyone knows what fun we create
And how to enjoy themselves once they join us
Bring along your kids, womenfolk and elderly
Because when it comes to merrymaking and a feast, we’re
the best around.
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The same fans invoke fierce pride and paternalism, yet also try to
appear humble:
We are Valletta’s children
We love this land we were born in
Everyone is against us
We, the children of Palestine
Because we are the offspring of
Ferocious lions
All fear Valletta
Euphoric, colorful and free of injury, the celebration was transmitted live from its beginnings to very late by all three national
TV stations. Not all football victories would merit such coverage but the Valletta celebrations were legendary. Both police and
bus inspectors joined in the occasion, urging travellers to show
patience with changing schedules and encouraging spontaneous
car-pooling to get home those who had missed the last or cancelled
buses. The next day’s front page carried images of the night and
the celebrations were discussed by columnists and TV talk-shows.
The kill-joys had their moments too: comments were made about
unroad-worthy and unlicensed vehicles in the procession, about
the illegal use of petards and about the prevalence of drunkenness
and litter. The crowds involved, be they parading or spectating,
numbered around 40,000. Nearly one in ten of the population of
Malta was involved in some way with this football carnival.
Euphoric,
colorful and
free of
injury, the
celebration was
transmitted
live from its
beginnings to
very late by all
three national
TV stations
Il-Funeral: Celebrating the dead
F
unereal images were a common feature of the classical Valletta
carnival, and have an important place within popular Catholic
imagery on a global scale. By the 1990s, this necro-drama had
taken pride of place in Valletta’s football celebrations, when victory
over Floriana saw a coffin bearing the green and white of Floriana
processed through the city streets. Il-funeral (the funeral) has since
then become a much-lauded ritualistic finale to the football season
by Valletta’s die hard fans. It effectively enacts a public execution and burial of football enemies. Originally a modest occasion
of mickey-taking, il-funeral has changed its route, its timing and
attracted a wider audience since then.
One Saturday morning, at the end of the 2000–2001 season, a
coffin bearing the colors of both Floriana and Birkirkara appeared
in Great Siege Square on tables draped with ecclesiastical cloths.
Church candles were stood either side of the casket and flowers lay
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at its base with a message offering tragic-comic condolences to the
defeated opponents. The dozens of Valletta fans involved reserved
their smiles for Maltese friends who were in on the act, and managed to keep a straight face when a group of tourists, keen to show
their respect to their hosts, appeared with two large bouquets of
flowers. After two hours of collecting money for the “deceased”
and listening to the Forza Valletta anthems blaring from nearby
speakers, the coffin was hoisted onto a trap and pulled by a horse
around the streets with the funeral cortege walking slowly behind
it drinking beer and laughing at their insolence. It is led by a fan
dressed in clerical robes, to play the priest, and goes from bar to bar
along Republic street. The accompanying brass bands do not limit
their musical repertoire to dirges appropriate to death. The mood
is playful and irreverent.
At first sight the funeral procession looks authentic. A
“cadaver”—actually a prostrate real human body—wearing full
ceremonial robes of a catholic Cardinal, is carried in an open cask
by pall-bearers in funeral attire with crucifix, mace and fraternity
crest borrowed somehow from a local church. Accompanying these
are men in a variety of religious costumes—of bishops, monsignors,
nuns and standard- and candle-bearers. Behind and alongside these
“officials” walk the Valletta F.C. committee members and other diehard fans. Beginning in the bastions of Fort St. Elmo the procession
winds its way past the Sagra Infermeria (the Knights’ Hospital).
Immediately behind the coffin as it approaches the higher part
of the city is a brass band playing New Orleans Funeral blues.
Suddenly the dead body comes alive and conveniently a glass of
whiskey is placed in his hand. In true biblical tradition a miracle
is performed and alcohol has played its part. The re-born raises his
glass to the cheers and ridicule of the crowd. The makeshift coffin
teeters precariously as the bearers feign drunkenness. The procession also includes the traditional mourners (bikkejja) who wail in
sadness at the death. Characteristically for the event, though, the
women who would normally wail were replaced by men in drag.
Indeed all bar one of the participants in the funeral were male. The
audience was 90% male.
While “lifeless,” the body is carried in and out of various bars
along the route. Each time, as it is offered a drink, the body comes
to life. As it leaves the King’s Own Band Club, the body comes to
life once more, raising its arms in synchronized movements, causing much mirth among the 300 or so spectators. As the ridicule
and irreverence reach their peak, the body is carried lifeless until
it enters Great Siege Square. The body then comes to life in stylized movements that mimic rigor mortis. Another three coffins
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then appear, painted in the colors of the club’s main opponents:
Floriana, Hibernians and Birkirkara. In a ceremony of mock seriousness, the painted coffins, together with the fourth minus its
body, are slung on ropes and hung on four poles some ten meters
high. The ropes are pulled and the coffins hoisted. As they rise to
a brass band’s lament, a drum roll mimics an impending execution.
At the final drum beat, huge cheers and raised glasses salute the
four coffins as they dangle for 10 minutes or so, in symbolic death.
Later, when the coffins are lowered a group of young boys kick the
coffins to pieces.
The cadaver and man of the moment is known to all by the
nickname Ciccio after the Italian matinee comedian popular in
the 1960s and 1970s. Aged 52, and both humble and generous, he
is Valletta born and like his father before him, makes a living out
of painting the floats of carnival. Fiercely proud of his trade and
its decades-old association with Valletta, he is quick to berate the
Maltese authorities for the way they promote the country and how
they prefer ersatz re-enactments to genuine images and participation. Images of naked women abound in his workshop located on
the harbor-side within the Valletta fortifications, which he shares
with a cat, four kittens, and a rather savage dog.
Working often until midnight, or in his reasoning “as long as it
takes,” his workshop is a port of call for dozens of locals to pass the
time of day or to volunteer their help on the murals and caricatures
he is always working on. In return, they are invited to an annual
party wherein food and alcohol are free. A wander round the workshop provides for dozens of images of fun, of music, of spectacle
and laughter which at times compete and other times compliment
the grotesque and the mocking all enacted in wood, metal, papermâché and pastel colours. Minute detail is dealt with—the façade
of a Maltese house even contains ventilation ducts. Such precision is no doubt a factor behind his trophy cabinet which tells the
curious that he is the winner of the annual carnival float some ten
times. All his creations contain his signature. Taking commissions
for carnival is only one source of income. Other designs are made
to order and come from a variety of sources; film and theater sets,
wedding backdrops and parades, and other football clubs’ celebrations. He has, however, to qualify the latter—he will not ever work
on designs for Floriana or Birkirkara. His involvement in the defilé
is an extension of his personal carnivalesque. Admitting that his
involvement stems from his reputation as “the joker,” he explains
to me that the reason il-funeral began in the Valletta is because
of the residents’ involvement in carnival; and as one of the main
carnival artists, he was also the chief protagonist of il-funeral. Over
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the years, il-funeral had adapted to take advantage of the expedient.
One year, he was placed in a coffin that was symbolically buried
in trenches provided by workers replacing the utilities infrastructure. Other times, he was carried prostrate, only to come alive
when repeatedly thrown in the air. A back injury prevented this
being repeated.
Conclusion
W
Both the
Parade and
the Funeral fit
a Bakhtinian
model of the
carnivalesque—
as transferred
from carnival
proper to the
field of football
celebrations
202
hereas Birkirkara represents the nouveau riches of
Maltese society and Maltese football, Valletta stands
for tradition and authenticity. Birkirkara evokes the
modernity of newer political and business elites who despite their
influence are, because of their very novelty, potentially fragile—
likely to disappear as quickly as they have appeared. Valletta, on
the other hand, has a deep history and deep footballing tradition.
Although now a highly depopulated city, its diaspora across Malta
is wide and strong—with people claiming even tenuous kinship
links back to Valletta, and often actualizing them by entering the
city weekly, monthly to participate in Valletta life, and particularly
its celebrations: religious festi, and of course football celebrations.
Both the Parade and the Funeral fit a Bakhtinian model of
the carnivalesque—as transferred from carnival proper to the field
of football celebrations. These celebrations have in recent years
escalated, and taken on innovations and reinventions from the carnival repertoire. In particular, they have revitalized the tradition of
biting personal satire of prominent public figures—and reinvented
the funereal practices of a previous era. These were born in the
era of colonialism, as critique of colonial power, through symbolic
speculation on fertility and death. In the postcolonial era, the victory parade is not a triumph over colonial power, nor over death,
but over perceived and real daily adversity and real and perceived
sporting enemies both long-standing and recent. The parade provides for a momentary unity within the reality of Valletta’s ever
potential social and political discord. It is a statement of distinction
and dignity that actualizes a community ethos whilst celebrating
reputations of disrepute (Mitchell 2002a). For whilst Birkirkara
represent the polite and slick face of modern football—with massive corporate sponsorship and swish facilities—Valletta stands for
a more earthy side of football, rooted above all in its fans, and their
reputation for mischief-making.
Such irreverence is part and parcel of successful football celebration, as it is also a central element in Bakhtin’s conception of
Six Trophies and
a Funeral
the carnivalesque. For Bakhtin, carnival gave peasants a second life,
ruled by laughter, rather than feudal landlords. It gave the Valletta
citizen supporters an important repertoire of symbolic forms from
which to creatively borrow. Carnival proper in Malta has gone the
way predicted by Bakhtin and others—through bureaucratic standardization it has become a staid occasion, devoid of the creativity
and irreverence characteristic of its earlier form. What remains,
however, is a powerful carnivalesque impulse, as manifest in both
Parade and Funeral, which subverts established religious norms,
and offers a space in which opponents can be openly abused. These
opponents are footballing rivals, but the rivalries are also related to
wider social cleavages—of localism, party politics, and social class.
Thus Floriana (local), Hamrun and Hibernians (party political)
and Birkirkara (social class) draw particular attention from the
mischievous carnivalesque satirists. It is an opportunity to ridicule
and insult these enemies of the Beltin.
The celebrations bring together the broad Valletta diaspora. In
a Durkheimian sense, it strengthens the bonds of Valletta’s inhabitants and those who claim origins in the city. The imaginative
costumes donned by the participant troupes draw on the history of
Valletta as a harbor/fortress town, evoking the glories of the past
against the decline of the present. In an increasingly suburbanized
Malta, Valletta is the fashionable place to lay claim to. Nostalgia
for the city offers the departed and the distantly related the chance
to experience authenticity; such that for many, the performance
of celebration becomes the real Valletta. The football celebration
manifests a reclamation of urban space—by volume of music and
singing, and by the power of transgression—in a lived jeunesse
d’heure which cannot be packaged into a tourist brochure. It is
ribald, drunken and holds the possibility of danger and disorder; it
thereby distorts, subverts and inverts the official representations of
the city, and the competing, bourgeois pageants sponsored by the
state through the National Tourism Organisation. It is celebration
and manifestation explicitly not targeted at the ever-present tourists. The 2001 celebrations began alongside the Valletta History
and Elegance pageant, ceding the city’s central public squares to
the relatively small number of pageant-goers, and congregating in
the more intimate and geographically marginal areas around the
lower bastions of the city. Two weeks later, the grand defilé and
funeral reclaimed these central spaces, in disorderly carnivalesque
and joyous celebration—a different Valletta history, without
the elegance.
Nostalgia
for the city
offers the
departed
and the
distantly
related the
chance to
experience
authenticity;
such that for
many, the
performance
of celebration
becomes the
real Valletta
203
City & Society
Notes
Acknowledgements. The authors are indebted to the students of the
University of Malta’s Anthropology of Football module, which ran
between 1999 and 2003. Special thanks are due to Dr Paul Clough, the
Course Convener and to Victoria Galea for assistance in the ethnographic
process. Thanks are also due to Tom Carter for his invitation to contribute
to this special edition; to Petra Kuppinger for her editorial advice; and to
two insightful anonymous reviewers.
1For a discussion of the politics of social space and respectability in
Malta, see Mitchell 1998; and 2002a: chapter 5.
2 A third, St Augustine’s parish, was added in 1968.
3 The Maltese Lira (Lm) is the Maltese currency. At the time of writing Lm 1 was equivalent of $ 2.90.
4 Only a few days earlier the Birkirkara FC vice-president admitted
publicly that they had withdrawn from the market their new CD which
contained a reference to this slur on birth. The president’s acknowledgement that this particular chorus was “insensitive” demanded the offending
phrase be removed. The Citizens grow up weaned on much worse innuendo than this and were capable of self-denigration thereby making fun of
themselves and their adversaries in one stroke.
5 Karmnu Scerri used this pseudonym as a poet.
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