When Ricky Mallory stepped out onto the Somerset CC pitch to make his debut for PHC a month ago he was honouring a bet with his late father.

The bet centred on the result of the 1992 Cup Final between PHC, Junior Mallory's old club, and Dandy Town, Ricky's team at the time. If PHC won, it was agreed, Ricky, who had joined Dandy to avoid comparisons with his dad -- an outside left for Cardiff City in the 60's -- would have to play for PHC at some point.

PHC triumphed 2-1 and so it was that Ricky Mallory, in one of those strange coincidences that sport throws up from time to time, found himself in the black and white stripes of the Zebras two years to the day that his father collapsed and died from a heart attack at the age of 53. The game was Ricky's first back in Bermuda after three years away at school in Philadelphia where he obtained a degree in engineering and graphic design and, watched by several members of his family, he struck two goals in a 4-2 defeat of Devonshire Cougars.

Junior would have been proud. On Tuesday night, he was back at Somerset and doing what he does best, inspiring his team in a compelling, if frenetic and ultimately fruitless, battle with Vasco -- though this time from a ball-playing midfield role rather than up front. "I played for a club team in Philadelphia,'' he says. "It was a nice experience. Most of the players were foreign. Although I played up front when I left, I was converted to a midfield role in the States and I got pretty used to that.

"Coming back, I've stayed there because there aren't that many players here who can pass the ball well.'' Indeed, the years away have seen changes in the game in Bermuda and not changes Mallory, also one of the Island's top tennis players, believes are for the better.

"To be honest, the standard has gone down,'' he says, echoing the sentiments of many involved in the game here. "A lot of the younger players you can't tell anything; they won't listen to you. Many are lacking the basics like running off the ball.'' And although coaches at PHC are working to improve such things from the junior levels of the club, he sees few signs of anyone following immediately in the footsteps of Kyle Lightbourne and Shaun Goater -- fellow squad members of the Bermuda national team who travelled to Canada in 1994 and then took on Aberdeen on the Island.

Mallory's name was absent from the list of 40 players called up by new national coach Clyde Best in the summer and although he'd welcome another shot at the international arena, he's not exactly sweating by the telephone.

Having recently turned 32, he admits: "I'm of an age when I wouldn't mind being involved, but it wouldn't bother me if I didn't hear anything. Some internationals go on until they're 35 or 36, but I'm on the way out.

"I can see myself playing one or two more seasons of club football, but I don't really have the time to train much with my job commitments at Belco and my young daughter.'' So how does he see the season shaping up for his new team? "At the beginning of the season a lot of people had written us off and were saying we were going to go down to the Second Division. But I don't think we will.'' But he agrees that they need to start showing their ability earlier than the second half.

"Yes, we were joking about that last night,'' he says, referring to the match with Vasco in which they came back from 3-0 down after 37 minutes to lose narrowly 4-3. "I told the others: `I'm going to score two goals in the back of my own net early on to get you guys going'.'' Mallory also represented his country as a tennis player, leading Bermuda in the Davis Cup Group IV tournament here in May.

RICKY MALLORY