How you’ll win in this industry
On his inspiration…
I got inspired to be a commentator from a very young age. When I was young, I used to play football with my friends in the mines where I grew up, and for some strange reasons, my team used to get knocked out of tournaments very early. So, I used to sit outside and do live commentary for other players. I used to pretend to be a radio commentator and the passion started from there. When I went to varsity at the University of Limpopo (which was called Turfloop back then), I completely lost interest in playing football and started taking commentary seriously. In 2001, when I heard that Thabiso Parkies, who was a great commentator, was leaving SABC to join Orlando Pirates as a PRO and there was a vacancy for a Sotho commentator, I started applying. I kept applying, but the doors were not opening. One day, I left my number for Noma Kunene, who was working at SABC, and I told her to call me if something comes up. She called and told me that SABC would be having auditions. I went there and they put a TV screen and a microphone in front of me and told me to commentate. I think I did my auditions for about three to four minutes until someone said, “He’s a natural”, and that’s how I got the job. But I had a lot of people I was looking up to, like Ntate Hlapane Masitenyane, Tshidiso Lepale, Koos Radebe, Zama Masondo and Thabiso Parkies. I learnt a lot from them.
On starting a Commentator Training Programme
I’ve been a commentator for over 20 years now and I said to myself that I have achieved everything I wanted to achieve in this industry, and I asked myself: How do I keep my legacy and also make people realise that we can’t all be medical doctors, lawyers and teachers because you can make a career out of this thing? How do I create opportunities for a black child? If people love football, let me create opportunities for them in what they love. One famous football administrator once said, “There are two things you will never take away from black people – the taxi industry and football.” If that’s the case, then I must find ways to create opportunities because I also had opportunities in my 20s. I sat down with people that I trust and we started brainstorming about ideas and came up with a training programme for young commentors between the ages of 18 and 35. The name of the programme is called ‘Nayi Le Voice – in the footsteps of Baba Mthethwa’. After training aspiring commentators, we will put them through a competition and decide which ones will qualify to be commentors in the future. And you must remember, you can have the love and passion, but the talent must also be there. You must also understand the sport you love, which is football in this case. There is so much involved in football commentary. It involves a lot of reading, a lot of research especially for international matches. You need to know different pronunciations of players’ names and all those things. You need to be eloquent in your language of choice. You must also choose a language that you can master and no one can touch you. Languages are very dynamic; they change all the time. You need to change with the times and go with the trends. If you become static, it means you will always tell us the same thing when you are on the microphone. If you move with the times, be creative, change with the trends, and all those things will make you a better and stronger commentator. Those things will happen when we sit you down and teach you, and that is part of the programme. After we train you vigorously and you are ready, then we will take you to an amateur game where you will sit down and commentate. After you have done that, then we will choose the best 25 who will compete for the national title. Up to now, we have received over 300 applications and will sort them out per province and cities. We will only do the training on weekends. We will look at major centres where there are facilities – we will follow the same format as Idols. We will train you first for three to four weekends and then have a competition. Small provinces like North West and Northern Cape, we will combine them and make them one region. We do have sponsors, but right now I cannot divulge their names before we launch.
On the difference between TV and Radio commentary
We will train people for both Radio and TV commentary. Our trainers, some of them do only Radio, some do TV and some do both. If you only want to do Radio, you will only come for Radio lessons and if you only want to do TV, then you will only do TV. Radio and TV are two different mediums. A TV commentator is someone who reads into the picture, narrates the story to the viewer but does not tell them what they can see. We inform, entertain and educate. Entertaining can come from your use of language, flamboyance, swagger, your knowledge of the language and how you play around with the language. Remember that humour comes naturally from how you speak. We have to tell the African story the way African football stories must be told, and that is by colour, rhythm and proper language. That is why we will invite the Pan South African Language Board to come and help us when we start the competition and training. We want to avoid a situation where people will try to use a language they are not fluent in. In your language, you must be able to play around with verbs and words because the way you speak must sound nicer and attractive to the viewers and listeners sitting at home. In TV, your audience are both listeners and viewers at the same time. In Radio commentary, the difference is you need to go ball by ball, emotion by emotion and man by man so that the person who is listening can follow you in their minds as if they are sitting at the stadium with you as you are talking. They must not just narrate, they must be able to tell a story that they cannot see but imagine. Remember, you also have people who are blind. Radio is more focused on telling a story as it is and creating an ambiance that is conducive to the ear. Your voice has to be applicable so that your listeners don’t lose interest. We will also be going to do voice training where we will teach people on when to change a pitch and where to change emotion during a commentary. When the ball is near the goal, do you speak loud or softly, do you shout, scream, show high emotions, no emotion… we will teach all those things. Sometime people scream when the ball is on the centre line and why are you screaming when the ball is on the centre line. According to the allocation of funds, the course will run for six months. This is a private thing that I am doing on my own, SuperSport has nothing to do with it.
On the future of commentary
There’s a great future ahead of us for Radio commentary. Regarding television, we still have a long way to go. Language is very important and we need to balance between what we are good at and what we are not good at. Stay on your strong points and improve your weak points. Don’t expect things to just happen, things don’t just happen. In order to improve, you must train yourself more. Watch more and listen to those who were there before you. You must remember that television has very little space in our country. If you are a master of your language, the passion is there and the talent is there, you will win in this industry. If you go back to the likes of Oom Dan Setshedi, Zama Masondo, Thabiso Parkies, Aubrey Motloung and Dumile Mateza, they were all good, but the scale has gone down since then. We need to improve and that can only happen if we believe that something has gone wrong. If we do that, we will start improving again. People like myself, who were there for a long time, we are not there by chance. We stay relevant forever because we respect the viewer, the craft and the sport itself. Never ever take anything for granted. You are never bigger than the craft.