Dispersed Fanbase

The thought of having a Liverpool supporters’ club in Gozo already existed about thirty to forty years ago. At that time, the perception of having a supporters’ club was very much different from today; it simply meant providing a location where supporters could meet to watch their team play. Nowadays, it’s a totally different approach. Supporters’ clubs are more organised, they work hard to be recognised, they are run in close collaboration with the mother club and do their utmost to qualify as an official club. During Liverpool’s golden years, that is in the late 1970s, Liverpool supporters on the island used to watch their team play at the Oratory Don Bosco in Victoria. At the time, this venue was a school, a home, a playground as well as a place of prayer and worship for men in the Catholic Church. This is where Salesians used to carry out activities aimed at promoting holistic education of the young and this is also where they helped poor children in need. So, it came as no surprise that this place offered the possibility for local football fans to watch the beautiful game as well.

Match days got a new meaning for local supporters; it meant driving around the island to watch a game in any one of the popular places where football used to be broadcasted live. The Aurora Snack Bar and the Oratory Youths Bar in Victoria, the Xewkija Band Club and the Nadur Band Club were amongst Gozo’s best places to watch football. However, something was still missing. The dream of being able to watch Liverpool play with a bunch of true Liverpool supporters still lingered in everyone’s mind. Liverpool supporters longed for a place where they could share joys and sorrows with Kopite friends.

Setting Roots

In the mid-nineties, Dr Chris Said, a local lawyer and great Liverpool supporter, organised a meeting with the intent of forming a Liverpool supporters’ club in Gozo. Charlie Farrugia, another Liverpool fanatic who had just moved back to the island from New York, was present. Having already contacted Mr Brian Hall, Head of Public Relations at Liverpool FC at the time, with the intention to open a supporters’ club overseas, Charlie offered part of his newly built home to become the Liverpool Supporters’ Club in Gozo. He kept his promise, as the club opened its doors in 1997.

Soon afterwards, word started spreading around and in no time at all, the club found itself on the local map. Locals flocked in their numbers to check out this new place. However, as things stood, the premises served only as the place to hang out on matchdays. Wanting to give the club a structure, it was decided to elect a committee. Contact with the already existing supporters’ club in Malta was established. During a cordial meeting between both committees, it was decided that the club in Gozo would be considered as a branch of the Liverpool Supporters’ Club Malta, to which the International Supporters’ Clubs (ISC) in Liverpool found no objection. For around eight years, the club was known as Liverpool Supporters’ Club Malta - Gozo Branch.

However, the committee had bigger plans. Basing its argument that the premises were based on another island, formal recognition was sought from the Official Liverpool Supporters Clubs (OLSC) network in 2006. This request was acknowledged, and Gozo had its official supporters club, running under its own steam. With that bold move, the club had joined Liverpool’s worldwide fan base.

Final confirmation of the level of service being given and the sterling work being done by the club in the community was obtained in 2021, when the Office of the Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations in Malta declared that OLSC Gozo satisfied all requirements to be considered as a voluntary organisation. The club is now classified as a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) too.

Screening of matches was in black and white and live games were a rarity. One cannot compare today’s accessibility of live football with the scarcity at that time, when football fans craved to watch any game that was shown. The weekly Star Soccer, later called Big League Soccer, aired on Malta’s national TV station, used to be the solitary visual link to football in the UK. It used to keep everyone’s eyes glued to the box. Likewise, Télé Monte-Carlo, a free-to-air television station based in the Principality of Monaco, used to cover a few FA cup games while the FA cup final used to be broadcasted live on our national television station as well. European football nights, screened on the Italian National TV station RAI, weren’t to be missed at all. Check - ing the score was no easy feat either, as internet and social apps were still unheard of. Football fans could only get to know how their team had fared in a match by listening to the Rediffusion, which used to transmit BBC programmes originating from the UK. Results trickling in at the end of each game translated everyone’s anticipation into joy or despair. Meanwhile, the football season 1992-1993 saw the intro - duction of the Premier League in England. This decision, brought about by the clubs in the old First Division wanting to break away from the Football League to take advantage of the monetary injection derived through the screening of live matches, fixed all that. Football came at a price, but it could be viewed real-time.

Running of the club

The club’s committee is elected by its paying members during the Annual General Meeting. Besides from managing the club in the best possible way, the committee regularly organises activities, bringing people together. Committee meetings take place monthly, sometimes more frequently, depending on the importance of the decisions needed to be taken.

The club boasts around three hundred paying members, most of whom are also registered as members of the LFC Official Membership.