Benny Pace
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Emmanuele Benito Pace' was born in Valletta on September 27, 1936, Pace studied at St Aloysius College, a school with firm sporting traditions, especially football.
Pace began his working career as a radio officer on the Malta to Sicily ferry, The Star of Malta. Later, he joined the Signal Squadron until the Services run-down when he took up employment with the government service as a clerical officer.
Pace started his sports journalist career in 1957 with the launching of his popular weekly Soccer Magazine. Three years later, he produced, edited and published The Sporting Star, a weekly sports newspaper. For a number of years in the fifties and sixties, Pace was assistant editor to Robbie DeCesare for of the popular Football Annual. He is also the author of many sports publications about football and, for many years, was responsible for the publication of Valletta FC's magazines and programmes.
In his long and eventful administrative career, Pace was the first president of the Darts Association, the Basketball Association and the Malta Billiards and Snooker Association. For a time, he was also involved in the Malta Boxing Association.
Pace was also an active member of the National Sports Board, the Għaqda Kittieba Sport, the Maltese Olympic Committee, Valletta's Waterpolo Club and of course, his beloved Valletta FC where he served as secretary for many years. He was also the founder of the Sportivi Nazzjonali and organised the contests between 1960 and 1964.
Pace was also the Sports Editor of Il-Poplu (1958-73), Il-Mument (1972-1985) and In-Nażżjon Tagħna (1970-1985).
He travelled extensively to cover sporting events such as the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games and the Mediterranean Games. Pace also reported on international football matches played by the Maltese national team. In 2007, Pace won the coveted Sports Journalism Award and that year, he was also inducted in the Maltese Olympic Committee Hall of Fame.
His unwavering love for sport meant that Pace was also involved in broadcasting and produced several programmes on Radju Malta, Super One and RTK. His best-known programme however, was the History of Maltese Sport, an 18-part series that was broadcast on TVM in 2001.
Pace was one of the pioneers of the national team supporters' club in 1958. Since then, he remained closely associated with Maltese football and compiled the national team's section in Lewis Portelli's famous publication, The Football Year Book, which was published between 1987 and 2007.
The name of Benny Pace or Mr Sport will remember with those who loves sport He passed away on the 24 February at the age of 73.