Steve Piggott – ‘It is nice to be remembered’

Steve Piggott – ‘It is nice to be remembered’

Although no silverware was won, Victoria Hotspurs had quite a good run during season 1986/87, eventually ending on a Runners-Up spot in the league and reaching the final of the GFA Cup. Up front in their team was Englishman Steve Piggott, who joined the club in the final stages of the previous season. The fast 23-year-old centre-forward proved to be an instant success, finishing as the league’s Top Scorer that season, the first foreign player to win this honour in Gozo. Piggott, now 58 years of age, still loves Gozo and makes it a point to try and come over once a year, catching up with old friends. Lennard Kelder met up with him recently to talk about his most successful period in his long football career.

FACT FILE
Steve Piggott (Rustington, England, 6 January 1963)
Top Scorer of the Gozo 1st Division 1986/87 – First foreign Top Scorer of the Gozo league
Played 18 official matches for Victoria Hotspurs, scored 7 goals during season 1985/86 & 1986/87
Clubs in England: Lavant FC, Boxgrove FC & Six Villages United FC

On a lovely but hot Saturday morning in July 2021, Steve talks about his Hotspurs period with pride in front of the current club in the capital of Gozo. ‘I came to Gozo somewhere in 1983 and as a vivid football fan I obviously started to attend the games at the Silver Jubilee’, Steve starts. ‘I had been playing football in the West Sussex County League Division 3 with Lavant FC before, but decided to put my active football career on hold to concentrate on my day job. I enjoyed watching the games very much, it was a competitive and exciting league’, Piggott remembers. ‘In 1986, my colleague Charlie Zammit at Tritons Restaurant, who was back then part of the Hotspurs committee, encouragement me to start playing with them and so it all started for me in Gozo’, he continues.

‘My first match was the 3-1 league defeat against Sannat Lions at the end of season 1985/86, followed by a win against Kercem Ajax. That result was later on reversed into a 0-2 win for Kercem after they protested as it seems that my GFA registration was not in order’, Steve recounts. It was indeed a season to remember as Kercem were crowned Champions of Gozo that season but only after decision taken during a hot tempered extraordinary GFA council meeting.

Steve, one of the very first foreign players who has ever donned the Hotspurs jersey, enjoyed his football and adapted quite quickly to the hard and sandy pitches. ‘We used to train at the ground in Victoria where is now the big parking’ Steve recalls. ‘The club had their premises opposite the ground. Everything was small, the changing room, the showers, but I enjoyed it very much nevertheless. I lived in Marsalforn and we trained twice a week, even in pre-season, it was great fun. The team was closely knitted together and were proud to wear the badge’, Steve continues. ‘The season started well for us with reaching the GFA Cup final against Ghajnsielem which we lost by a single second half score. I competed with Noel Cardona in the forward line and entered as a sub in the Final. But in the league, coach George Formosa preferred me instead of Noel and his faith in me paid off by winning the first four league games in which I scored all seven goals that season’.

‘At the Silver Jubilee’, every time when I scored, I got treated with tomatoes from opposite fans’, Steve says with a smile. ‘And like every local footballer, I got full of abrasions and scars on my legs and arms. First aid was just water and obviously a magic sponge’, Steve laughs.

‘One of the matches I clearly recall was the derby against Victoria United’, Steve remembers. ‘We beat them 5-1 and I scored four goals. The last goal was a memorable one. There was a cross from the right, I was positioned at the far post and I could only connect with the ball with my heel but managed to score. Every time when I am back in Gozo, old Hotspurs supporters still remember this match. It is nice to be remembered.’ Piggott cherishes the memories of his teammates, especially with late captain Dominic Grech; ‘Dom was a real leader of the team, not afraid to tell you the truth during matches. He personally guided me at the start of my adventure by giving me advise and helping me to integrate in the team. A very wise man who had a great influence on me. I owe him a lot and it was no surprise for me that he had a great career in coaching after his active career’. With Frankie Portelli and Twannie Farrugia on the wings he formed a great forward line; ‘We played a typical straight forward 4-3-3 system those days and was fed with dangerous crosses from the flanks from Frankie and Twannie, two fast wingers. There was veteran defender Vincent Fenech, hard worker Michael Grech on midfield and with the late Reno Portelli between the sticks we had a reliable goalkeeper’.

‘The fact that I was a foreigner put a lot of extra pressure on me. Everyone at the club clearly expected a lot from me’, Piggott claims. ‘I could deal with it though, but I knew I had to deliver in each and every game. After a while in the league, opposing teams adapted to our style of playing and I found it hard to score, but with my speed I was still useful for the team obviously. We did not concede a goal in the Championship Pool and unfortunately, we lost the point we had obtained in a 0-0 draw with Xaghra United which costed us the Championship. With that point, we should have forced a Championship Decider with Kercem as we would have ended the league with the same number of points. The fact that we eventually did not win anything that year was taken highly seriously, we obviously started the season with the aim to win silverware and I could feel the disappointment at the club’.

At the end of season 1986/87 however, Piggott got awarded by the GFA, receiving the GFA 1st Division Top scorer award, a great personal achievement for an excellent season of the Victoria Hotspurs centre-forward. ‘Although I knew that there were hardly no foreign players around on the island, I had back then absolutely no idea I wrote history’, Steve recalls. ‘To be crowned league Top Scorer of the island was a proud moment for me, something I cherish for the rest of my life’.

Unfortunately, during 1987-88 pre-season, Steve got injured and on top of that, personal circumstances made him decide to return to the UK. Back home, the striker joined Boxgrove FC, playing back then mostly in the West Sussex County League Division 4. He remained with them until 1995, the year he started his coaching badges 1 and 2. In 2010, a fully certified Piggott then joined Six Villages United in the West Sussex Sunday League Two, first as a player-coach and after a while as a coach, winning the Sunday League Cup Final in 2017 as biggest achievement.

As indicated, Steve is around quite frequently as he loves Gozo, visiting the club very often, sharing memories of the days gone by. He has done the club proud and paved the way for the modern era of football in Gozo, as many classy foreign strikers followed his footsteps.