A TRIBUTE TO ADOLFO RAMIREZ

A tributo to Adolfo Ramirez

It was a truly emotional evening

After nearly 50 years, a group of football teammates from the early 1970s finally met up again to honour their manager, and thank him for the positive influence he’d had on them during their formative years

Text by Stephen Neish

AS I WROTE IN A RECENT article for the Gibraltar Chronicle, Adolfo Ramirez is a man who’s lived and breathed football all his life. From his early days as a player with Catalan Bay-based Shamrock FC and then Gibraltar United to his stint as GFA Manager between 1993 and 1997, during which he gloriously steered Gibraltar to

silver medal success at the Gibraltar Sunshine Island Games in 1995. He gave his beloved game his all.

When he finally hung up his boots (not before acquiring a sackful of cups, trophies and medals) he went into management and took over the reins of a fledgling junior team called Rovers United. I

remember the very first match we played under him was against one of the top teams in the division. We were 3-0 down at half time, got what’s today known as the hair dryer treatment during the interval, and ran out 4-3 winners in the end! conked out, and he had to buy a new set of wheels!

Mind you, Adolfo demanded a similar level of commitment from his players. We trained three times a week and you’d better turn up if you wanted to play at

Adolfo’s commitment to “los Rovers”, as everyone called us, was absolute. When we had a fixture at one of the Europa Point pitches, he’d somehow pile us all into his tiny Honda Civic – the smaller ones like yours truly in the boot, if memory serves me correctly – and drop each of us at home after the match. I’d swear that car was actually a disguised version of Dr Who’s time machine the TARDIS, which as fans of the cult sciencefiction BBC TV series will know, was much larger on the inside than it seemed from the outside. Eventually the valiant Civic the weekend. If he smelled alcohol on anyone’s breath (most of us hadn’t reached drinking age yet) he was sent home and dropped for the next game. Discipline - That was one of the many values he helped instill in us. Teamwork and team spirit too - Playing for each other- “Carrying” a player without complaint when he was having a stinker. It’s no exaggeration to say he helped us transition from boys to men.

Adolfo advocated a fast, attacking style of play and demanded a high work rate. He was proud when servicemen living in Chilton Court and Edinburgh House told him they went to see our matches at the Naval Grounds (remember them?) to admire the quality of our football, sometimes against older, taller and physically stronger opposition.

It wasn’t all work, however. He also rewarded us by organizing events like end-of-season parties to which our parents were invited, and dances - to which they weren’t! I have fond memories also of all of us watching a film he’d managed to get hold of (VHS had still to be

invented) of the 1968 European Cup Final in which Manchester United beat Portuguese champions Benfica 4-1 after extra time, the first occasion on which an English team lifted Europe’s top trophy. I’m sure Adolfo must have been heart-broken when “his” Rovers broke up, mainly as a result of so many members of the team going on to further education in the UK.

But, back to that emotionally charged night of Saturday 11th January; it had been months in the making and was the brainchild of “Forty” Azzopardi, he of SDGG and Piazza Grill fame and a tough, uncompromising (to put it mildly) defender in his youth. He asked me if I’d help organize a surprise party for Adolfo and I was more than happy to oblige. We decided to hold it at the Casino Calpe, but how to get him there? Luckily his younger son Colin already knew, although it hadn’t yet been announced officially, that he was to be appointed the new Chief Fire Officer and on that pretext he and his brother Giles said they were inviting their dad to a quiet, discreet celebration.

The poor chap didn’t know what hit him. When the three of them climbed the stairs to the first floor, he naturally thought the intonation of “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” by a room full of people was meant for Colin. It took him a few moments to realize it was actually meant for him, and that those doing the singing were his Rovers United protégés. “I’m speechless” he eventually managed to utter, visibly moved. But he recovered as we tucked in to our paella and raciones, and we shared many stories, memories and anecdotes of bygone days.

Nor did he go home emptyhanded. Before cutting a cake decorated as a football pitch, we presented him with a football shirt of his favourite team, Athletic Bilbao, a football signed by the Rovers “Old Boys”, a framed photo of an actual Rovers line-up before a game and an inscribed glass plate. I can think of no better way to end than with a quote from it: “To Adolfo, much more than a manager: a mentor to all of us”.

A long journey to seek Justice Politics, Bullies and You

Text by Joe Adambery

IN HIS TWENTIES, Nicolas Napoli has just written his first book and it’s not a novel, it’s his life story so far and it’s not a happy one because it involves a long struggle against bullying at work,

which saw him fall ill on account of stress and then developing epileptic fits. The long journey to seek justice and get his life back on track is a story worth telling and he has managed to pack this book with many well researched and interesting self help threads, which compliment his journey’s narrative and enrich the book’s content by digressing the reader away from the central theme and giving them a breather from what is a profound sketch of an unhappy time in the young man’s life.

In a nutshell, his problems started when he filled in an application to work in tourism and got the job. It was then discovered that the employers might have been too hasty to take him on and were unhappy with what he had written on the application form and wanted to divest themselves of him and couldn’t - so they made his life as miserable as possible to see if he could be pushed out, but he stuck to his guns and took the abuse. It was always going to end in tears and it did much worse for young Napoli.

At the end of the rainbow, there is a pot of gold but the journey to reach it doesn’t always seem to be worth it depending on how strong you are and well prepared you are to take a series of curved balls and hard balls, which life will throw at you. If you can get up from the falls and run with them you will reach your goal but at what cost is a question only you can answer after the epic journey. The book can sometimes be a bit of a downer but if the sense of injustice has grabbed your attention, you will stick with it and the pages will turn quickly.

"Locally available at Saverland for £16.00 (Hard Cover)" or on-line at Amazon, W.H. Smith, Barnes and Nobles etc...

Gibraltar Tangier Exchange

Text by Mark Montovio

MUSICIANS AND ARTISTS from Morocco visited Gibraltar as part of the Gibraltar/Tangier Cultural exchange organised by Gibraltar Cultural Services in conjunction with The JM Memorial Foundation.

The week started off with a musical/artistic presentation at GEMA where the traditional musicians, the Dakka Marackshia, presented several pieces to an astounded audience, Wadie Ismail sung a few of his latest songs, and painters Karima Jahidi and Sanae Alami showcased some of their paintings. The musicians and painters then spent the rest of the week visiting schools and the Gibraltar College running workshops on a variety of themes. The workshops were

very well received by the students, and the Moroccan artists were very impressed by the talent displayed and the willingness of the young people to engage with them. The recording of a music video of an original song by Adrian Pisarello and Liam Byrne from Gibraltar and Wadie Ismail from Tangier also took place during the week. The video directed and produced by Karl Celecia from Gibraltar, and filmed and edited by Soufiane El Habriri from Tangier, will be complete when the Gibraltar artists go over to Morocco in April. The first phase of the project has been a huge success with all of its aims met and the organisers are looking forward to the second phase in Morocco in the Spring.

My Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen

There is no spectacle on earth more appealing than that of a beautiful woman in the act of cooking dinner for someone she loves. Tom Wolfe (American Journalist)

Text by Rosanna Morales

THIS QUOTE BY TOM Wolfe reminds me of how much we adored my mother’s cooking. We did everything in her kitchen. It was the centre of love, warmth and the deliciousness of Sicilian dishes. My father, a very passionate and demonstrative man, would grab her around her waist and give her a big smooch as she stood at the stove testing if the pasta was al dente and ready to serve. “Mmmm…buonissima!!!!! She was a beautiful woman and he was spectacular. If we needed comfort, it was always there, at dinnertime, for my sister and I.

As you can tell, I grew up on a Mediterranean diet. Our fridge was always bursting with vegetables, legumes, fruits and fish. No processed food – all

the table and tell each other about our day. It is the time of day I cherish.

made with fresh ingredients with a sprinkling of love … and gallons of olive oil! My mother taught me all her cooking techniques but I never really took to being in the kitchen. I got caught up in working long hours of a demanding career hence cooking became more and more of a chore. Eventually, I became a lazy cook. But no matter what I served up, our family dinners were an important part of our day. It is always a time for our family to gather around It was only when I started on my journey towards a vegan lifestyle that I returned to my mother’s Mediterranean kitchen. I started to adapt her recipes to make them fully vegan. Although I did not grow up in a vegan family, it was really very easy to substitute animal products with plant based. I feel so much joy in bringing back mum’s aromas into my kitchen – my Mediterranean vegan kitchen! Our kitchen cupboards now bare great resemblance to my mother’s. They are filled with herbs and spices, legumes, tomato tins, pastas, flours and oils. Our fridge is always

more creative as a vegan when it comes to baking. I now find great rewards in cooking a dish and feeding it to my family and friends. It is a means of communicating my love for them and making them happy just like my parents did. It makes my soul beam! Grazie Mamma e Papà for all the love AND the food you share with us. If you are interested in finding out more about starting your vegan journey, follow Rosanna on her Facebook page Keep Your Light Bright for inspiration and mentorship. bursting with fresh fruit and vegetables. And just like my mother’s kitchen there is very little processed food. Since living in Gibraltar, I have also introduced and ‘veganised’ many traditional recipes from this part of the world – the mythological ‘end of the world’ has so many influences from the many Mediterranean countries that reached the Rock. As I walk through the streets of Gibraltar, I love smelling the variety of aromas that come from restaurants. I enjoy the aromas that drift into our kitchen window from my neighbours’ stoves. I love being surrounded by food and history! I also love cooking dishes from around the Mediterranean. I am always looking online for vegan versions of recipes and enjoy trialling them. Fortunately, my husband and son are not fussy eaters and they are always happy to be my in-house testers. My family and friends love my vegan Italian lasagne, Greek moussaka, Moroccan stews, Sicilian arancini, Spanish empanadas, and falafels from Israel and, of course, my vegan tortilla made with chickpea flour. I am proud to say I have created a yummy kitchen and new centre of love and compassion. Since becoming a more confident vegan cook, I have extended my skills to baking bread, cakes and biscuits. It has brought back so many fond memories of returning home from school to the aroma of my mother’s home baking. I was finding it difficult to source good quality vegan cakes and biscuits so I started to make versions of mum’s biscuits, tiramisù, and her delicious trifles. It was so much easier than I thought. I now make some vegan cakes that my family and friends enjoy. As my husband says: “What happened to the cakes you used to make where you bought a packet and added an egg?” I have certainly become