Joe Scicluna
1951 - 2005
 

'Gieh Ghajnsilmiz' Award
On the 10th of December 1999, Joe Scicluna was awarded the 6th Edition of the 'Gieh Ghajnsilmiz' Award during a Gala Ceremony at the St Joseph Band Club Hall for his outstanding contribution towards the cultural development of the village of Ghajnsielem.

His years with Ghajnsielem F.C.
Joe’s relationship with the Club started in the minors. He played as a forward in the famous 1965/66 minor league team that secured the first championship of that category for the Club. His contemporaries were Loreto and Vincent Galea, Vincent and Nikol Cutajar, Joe Rapa, Francis and Toni Cauchi, Salvinu Xuereb all players who would go on to form the core of the magnificent Blacks team of the 1970’s. He then moved on, with most of his teammates to the reserves team. More success followed: Joe’s reserves team won the championship in 1967/68. This was also the first time that Ghajnsielem had won a championship at this level. That same year he made his debut in the senior team, when he played in the 3-0 victory over Sannat Lions in a first division match.

(69/70 Joe standing second from left)

Due to the wealth of talent at the Club and his commitments to study, Joe could not pursue a football career at the highest levels. This, however, did not stop him from staying active in the sport. He was a prolific scorer with the Catholic Action leagues powerhouse Torpedo team. He also often played with the likes of Loreto Galea, Raymond Buttigieg, Joe Rapa, Toni Cauchi and others in Ghajnsielem selections that played amateur Maltese sides visiting Gozo.

In the early 70’s he joined the committee of Ghajnsielem F.C. and in 72/73 he was the vice-president of the Club. He resigned from this role early in 1973 when he left Gozo for New York. At the time he was also in charge of the reserves as player coach. He played and scored in the season-opener, a 4-0 win over Victoria Hotspurs. The reserves went on to win the championship that year as well. After his return to Gozo, Joe resumed his involvement with the Club, although not with the same intensity as before. He still found time to inspire and encourage many young boys to practice football seriously.

(65/66 minors-Joe standing second from right)

His contribution to the Club goes well beyond these milestones. Joe and his boyhood friend and colleague Joe Rapa, were largely responsible for the formidable organization behind the famous 70’s Blacks. The administrative prowess for which the Club was noted in those years was based in large part on the ability, devotion and determination of these two men. The groundbreaking Black & White magazine which was published monthly in those years, set standards which to this day have not been met. The quality of the features contained in those magazines penned by Scicluna and Rapa is astonishing: they capture vividly the ebb and flow in the Club’s mood and, apart from the fading memory of the dwindling number of people who lived then, that is all that we have left to remind us of what it was like to be the undisputed football champion of this island.

Father Bernard Hersey and Carmelo Mallia are the founding fathers of the Club, Carmelo Rapa is the individual who revived the Club time and again during the rough 50’s and early 60’s, but Joe Scicluna and Joe Rapa are the two individuals that defined the Blacks’ culture, a culture that unified Ghajnsielem behind the Club en route to five years of glory in the 70’s, a culture that gave the Club enough momentum to survive the misery of the 80’s in order to rise again over the past decade to where it is today.

A few words from a close friend... Revel Barker
Hundreds of students owe their academic achievement to Joe Scicluna, who died tragically in August 2005. Just how good he was, and how much he was appreciated, was evidenced by the scores of former pupils, covering a long range of generations, who would stop him in the street or approach him in a bar or restaurant solely to greet him and thank him for his tutelage. For to most of them he was much more than a source of private tuition for the hurdles of teenage examinations; he became both mentor and friend.

Joe was a natural teacher. Born with an insatiable appetite for knowledge he found learning effortless. While studying at the Lyceum he was always ready, and able, to assist fellow students who found the schooling process less easy. Tutoring was therefore an obvious choice as a career, and he specialised in English, Maltese, and history and philosophy.

His particular personal interests were what Oxford dons describe as The Greats – classics and philosophy. Between lessons he would saunter from his home in Hamri Street, Ghajnsielem, to the Grand Hotel where he would sit with a book or a newly arrived copy of The Times Literary Supplement, interrupting his own continuing education only briefly to chat with a small coterie of like minds or to help tourists (many of whom would become lifelong friends and correspondents) better understand the uniqueness of his native island.

Packages of books would arrive at his home almost daily, and Joe would devour and digest them immediately, at the rate of three or four a week. As a diversion he would write dissertations or dialogues, often of imagined conversations (but always based on acquired or assumed knowledge) between the great philosophers – Aristotle, Socrates and Plato were his favourites – or characters from history. His most recent was a description of the likely dialogue between St Paul and Malta’s Roman governor, Publius, following the historic shipwreck in 60AD.

The quality of these writings was of a standard that could serve as synopses for movie scripts. When he was satisfied with the work it would be made available, where appropriate, to students who could then appreciate more easily the characters about whom they were being uniquely tutored.

Yet in spite of his bookwormish disposition, Joe was by nature gregarious. He delighted in friendship and social gatherings and would happily insert a bookmark, snap closed whatever he was reading, and join enthusiastically in any discussion (with Joe, it would never be an argument: he was always eager to hear all lines of reasoning) whether it was the meaning of the Book of Revelations or the management of Manchester United.

A few years ago he wrote a definitive history of Ghajnsielem. Sadly, especially when compared to many similar but inferior local histories, it was never published, mainly because Joe could not bring himself to think of it as a commercial, rather than as an academic, enterprise. As with all his work, however, photocopies were readily available to anybody who expressed an interest, whether friends, students or tourists.

When Ghajnsielem created its official website, Joe was nominated 'Man Of The Month'. It was so popular, and so obvious, a choice that in the absence of any serious competition he retained the title for month after month. If ever anybody deserved the description “a gentleman and a scholar”, it was Joe Scicluna, The Teacher.

On a final Note
It is sad to think that all that knowledge in such diverse fields as history, literature, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, etc. and the analytic power he had developed vanished so abruptly in August 2005. Joe was generous in sharing his knowledge and with his advice helped many students overcome academic hurdles. Joe was always approachable. So it is heartbreak for those who used to chat with Joe at the Grand Hotel, at Horatio’s, in the village square or at some dinner or occasion that they will never run into him again.