All-rounder who chronicled sport
Bareng-Batho Kortjaas and Kaizer Motaung pay tribute to Leslie Sehume, a jack-of-all-trades journalist who gave support to the founding of Kaizer Chiefs
He played a huge role in giving us confidence that this thing can happen. He encouraged me, saying ‘go for it’
He was the fuel in the journalism world who passed on the message about the birth of Kaizer Chiefs
Leslie Sehume, who was given a journalist of the year lifetime award in 2015, has died. He worked for The World, Golden City Post, Drum magazine and The Mail of Bophuthatswana and was regarded as a jack of all trades in the profession.
One of the boxers he trained, Jacob “Baby Jake” Ntseke, became Transvaal lightweight champion.
He was a sounding board for Kaizer Motaung in the early stages of what became Kaizer Chiefs.
Met him as a youngster
When I spoke to Motaung, this is what he said: “I was deeply saddened to learn about the passing of veteran journalist Les Sehume a few weeks ago.
“I met Bra Les when I was still a youngster attending school at Orlando High. He was a sports editor at The World newspaper.
“From time to time, together with Ewert Nene [a co-founder of Chiefs], we went to visit him at The World to interact and talk to him about the developments with regards to forming Chiefs.
“Bra Les was more like an adviser to us. He was very much accommodating. He would give us advice on a lot of things. To bring the whole thing forward, he played a significant role in terms of us forming Kaizer Chiefs.
“He played a huge role in giving us confidence that this thing can happen. He encouraged me, saying ‘go for it’. I felt very much uplifted by that kind of support.
“We discussed the possibilities, the pros and cons of actually going this route. He said ‘it is a big challenge, but if you feel confident you guys must go for it’.
“Just before we started this thing, he used to talk about the Chiefs formation with Cyril McAravey [a newspaperman who also played a role in forming Chiefs].
Travel with the first team
“Bra Les was a very keen journalist who wrote about different sports. I would see him at Motsamai’s house [David Motsamai was a rags-to-riches bootlegger who became a patron of Orlando Pirates. His name was Nelson Mandela’s nom de guerre when the late president encountered apartheid authorities].
“When I played for Pirates, Motsamai was the patron. In fact, he is the one that elevated me to travel with the first team.
“As the Pirates junior team [playing in the fourth division] we used to play curtainraisers. I got special treatment because I played for the juniors and the seniors. It made it easy for me to assimilate to the first team.
Father figure
“Getting back to Bra Les, the way he wrote was inspiring. To tell you the truth, players used to go there when they had problems with their club. He was more like a father figure to some of us.
“I was telling Irvin [Khoza, PSL and Orlando Pirates chair] the other day that I was very sad when somebody told me that Bra Les has passed away. I can’t remember seeing anything. I can’t recall reading anything about it. I was shocked, ukuthi kanjani [how could it be?] Bra Les can just go and it is quiet? Just like that.
“He was a storyteller, always telling interesting stories. [Sehume covered major events too, such as the world heavyweight title bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, in 1974.]
“He was a man of style too. What was very much conspicuous about him was his height. [Think Jacob “Baby Jake” Matlala, who was 1.5m tall.]
“When you start something like this, you need backup from the media and Bra Les championed some of the ideas and reached out to the people.
“When you take up a challenge you are obviously taking it head-on, but also understanding you require support from left, right and centre. You need something that generates that confidence.
One of those people
“That is the kind of feeling we got from Bra Les. The wisdom that he gave us to go ahead with this project. It was a humungous project. We didn’t know the enormity of this thing.
“We looked around to see who was with us. People to give us the strength. Bra Les was one of those people. He was the fuel in the journalism world who passed on the message about the birth of Kaizer Chiefs.
“He led the baby and watched it grow and continued in the background to give us support. The only regret I have is that it had been a very long time since I met with him. I was not even thinking about his age. I didn’t realise so much time had gone by.
“My sincere condolences to the entire Sehume family. They should be proud to have nurtured a son who did so much.”