Lino Vella, pioneer community leader for migrants in Australia, dies at 85

Lino Vella, a well-known community leader in Australia and a beacon for Maltese identity Down Under, has passed away. He was 85.

A popular footballer in his younger days, Vella, born in Paola, was the editor of The Maltese Herald for 42 years, after migrating to Australia in 1954.

He was awarded the Australian Medal (AM) by the Federal Government of Australia in January 1999 and Gieħ ir-Republika by the Malta Government in 2011.

Lawrence Dimech, his close colleague and current co-editor of The Voice of the Maltese, the only digital and print magazine for the diaspora, said Vella was an icon who has devoted his life to his beloved Herald and the Melita Eagles FC.

Foreign Minister Evarist Bartolo was among those who expressed their condolences. 

Vella spent his formative years at St Julian’s before migrating to Australia on the liner ‘Sydney’ in November 1954. He left school in 1951 to work as a panel beater, but his father, who was a canteen manager, helped him find work with the NAAFI.

His first job in Sydney was as a trench digger for the New South Wales Water Board. He took on various jobs, including six years with the Olympic Tyre Company.

A life-long devotee of soccer, Vella’s association with Melita Eagles dates to the year of the team’s formation in Sydney in 1955. Vella was president of Malta Eagles when the club amalgamated with the Melita Football Club in 1956. He served the club as president, coach, secretary and goalkeeper, and was made a life member.

His love of soccer led him into the world of journalism and in 1957, he helped Lawrence Dimech produce a short-lived magazine called Soccer Light.

His journalism took a further step in the late 1950s when he was sports editor for the Sydney-based Malta News. In 1961, when the national newspaper, The Maltese Herald, commenced publication, Vella had his own column, ‘On Target’, and sports section.

By the mid-1960s, the Maltese Herald expanded from an eight-page monthly into a 20-page weekly.

He was married to Barbara Platel, with whom he had a son, Paul, and a daughter, Annette.

Source: Dr Barry York