History of the club.

The Stompers  RFC was originally founded in Spring 1996 by Simon Vincenti, Damian “Squiffy” Mifsud and David Cutajar.

Stompers was set up as a completely new club as it was felt that there was a need for more clubs and more variety within Malta Rugby at the time. The founding members worked fairly harmoniously except on the contentious issue of the name of the new club. Initial proposals included “Armitage Shanks”, after a famous toilet manufacturer amongst others obviously this was thought impractical (to put it diplomatically). Eventually after much commotion during which Simon managed to lean heavily on an  antique dining table , breaking this and some French crystal glasses in the process,  “Stompers” was suggested and was accepted by consensus.

Stompers originally trained at the Tigne football (dirt) ground in those days. We had a proper set up and a decent sized squad of around 30 people and some students that Simon Vincenti was coaching at St. Edwards college where he teaches. Our first coach was the tough talking and fiery Welshman Clive Parrot. Mirielle Zarb Adami (now Vincenti having married the big fella) was our first fitness coach and is a qualified physiotherapist. Simon Vincenti was the first club captain and top try scorer in first season. Top points scorer and kicker was flanker/ 2nd row  Mark Grima.

Stompers managed to secure sponsorship from Urban Jungle through the personal finances of Richard Cleland who without his initial financial support the club could have never started.  Stompers were also instrumental in arranging with the Army to use the old British military rugby ground at Safi. The ground today is a holding camp for refugees. Back then the army were quite happy to let us use the ground (Saturdays only ) as they were worried the local council would take it over for housing. It turned out that this was very much needed for the 1997/1998 season as the R.A.M. (Rugby Association of Malta) committee had resigned leaving a vacuum and our use of Marsa pitches was taken away by the authorities.

Due to the lack of a proper MRFU committee then still known as the R.A.M. Malta rugby as a whole went through a bad, rather disorganized patch from 1998 to 2000.  The leagues were not properly organized and there was a general lack of discipline and commitment. This affected Stompers as much as any of the other clubs and some players returned to old clubs or dropped out of rugby. The seniors club at that point was considered inactive and ‘dead.’  However, in the year 1999 a group of determined St. Edwards students under the tutelage of Simon and fascinated by the appeal of the full-contact sport decided to spice up the P.E Sessions at school and managed to convince the school sports section to start teaching and training the few initially interested boys.  During that year the few quickly became a complete team as the buzz rapidly spread amongst peers. From training at school the youths decided to start training after school and quickly joined up with the Stompers RFC where had it not been for John ‘goofy’ Maistre and James Deguara the name would have died and now be forgotten.  These undertook to continue the running of the club with the help of the upcoming youths like Mark ‘Gorg’ Camilleri and Joshua Anastasi. Initially there were about 6 which soon turned into around 60 and the running of the club was slowly being taken over by the ‘older youths’ such as Mark and Josh. They were coached by Stuart Middleton and Alan Mckay a prop from overseas RFC who used take pleasure in working us to the ground. The St. Edwards team as well as other players such as James Clark, Phillip D’Amato, Andrew Grech, Alex Vella and Matthew Leanny (RIP) then became known as the Stompers Juniors. 

In the late months of the year 2000 the team joined the Malta Rugby Football Union to officially form what was then known as the Stompers Juniors RFC, which was considered as the nursery of the MRFU and was actually instrumental in them joining the International Rugby Board (IRB). At that time the club used to get a couple of games mixing in with some of the more senior teams for the season 2000-2001.  In the Year 2001 the club then changed its name to the Stompers RFC as it is known today. It rejoined the National League in the season 2001-02 headed by Andrew “Tony” Camilleri (Captain) Christoffel ‘Stoff’ Diamantino (President), Mark Camilleri, Joshua Anastasi, Malcolm Attard, Mario fountain and Patrick Satariano (rest of the committee). The top try scorer for that “1^st” year was Mario Fountain. The club in 2002 opened its own organised youth nursery a first in Maltese rugby.

The club has been thriving ever since gaining in strength, experience and numbers. Stompers won it’s first cup in the season of 2003-04 when it won the Barclays cup. In the season of 2004-05 it fielded two teams in the league another first in Maltese rugby. In recent years stompers has continued to win in various competitions regularly wining the Ray Elliot Cup as well as the National League and Cup. During the Season 2009-2010. Stompers also won the inaugural X’s League. Other achievements being the first club to have home grown nursery players make their debuts in the Maltese National Team to include themselves amongst the growing number of Stomper Maltese Nationals.