Our role as journalists is to uplift the game, whether the officials like it or not

WE SHOULD probably rename this “the revolving column”. After all, its authors keep changing.

I am back to writing it – for a third spell – after the previous incumbent, Njabulo Ngidi, left.

Before him, the likes of Tshepang Mailwane, Nkareng Matshe, Jonty Mark as well as the late Clinton Asary plus Thomas Kwenaite (TK), John Perlman and Marks Mapon- yane used this platform to give their views on all matters football.

And that’s what makes this a pretty challenging undertaking.

For all of the men above had very strong views and they never held back in voicing them – even if it meant them getting a mouthful from the subjects of their articles.

That Bra TK is a legend in sports journalism was partly because of how he called on the football administrators to do right by the game, often through this column.

The late Asary dared to go where even angels feared to tread by taking on PSL chairman Irvin Khoza with regards to the formation of Ajax Cape Town. He had previously had a run-in with former PSL CEO Joe Ndlela thanks to this column in which he questioned the man’s fitness for office.

I vividly remember getting calls from an incensed Jomo Sono following columns written by Nkareng, Bra J feeling aggrieved by what he felt were “personal attacks”. Unbowed, and convinced he was merely doing his job of giving fair comment on the game and its exponents, Nkareng continued to pen some hard-hitting columns – one of those leading to former Safa president Kirsten Nematendani threatening us with a lawsuit.

Jonty once had his ears ringing following a long telling off by his fellow Briton Stuart Baxter whom he’d cartooned as Pinocchio after he’d found out the former Bafana Bafana coach had spiced up his CV in a profile given out by Kaizer Chiefs when he joined them.

Tshepang tells of a time when he had to sit through a telephone lecture from Pitso Mosimane after he’d questioned the Mamelodi Sundowns development programme. Njabulo also had a run-in with “Jingles,” who disagreed with his views of what had happened during the Brazilians’ Champions League trip to Ghana’s Medeama.

While I wasn’t around to recall John and Mark writing anything to see some club official or player getting their knickers in a knot, I do know that they too used this platform to tackle football matters – the aim always being to uplift the game.

It is, I believe, our role as journalists. Sure the primary aim is to inform you of the goings-on in the sport you love so dearly.

But we would be failing if we didn’t contribute to its uplifting via our writing. And to do that we have to be unafraid of ruffling some feathers, the threatening calls late at night or early in the morning from the bosses notwithstanding.

I’ve had my fair share of those over the years to can be worried about having to tread carefully.

And so it will be with conviction that I write this column, telling it like it is as per The Star motto.

Not that I will be “out to get” anyone, far from it. For as I’ve done in previous stints – I will use Three-Five-Two as a platform to share my views on the game we all love so dearly.

Sure sometimes the column will ‘step on toes’, and being the ‘sensitive souls’ they are – club bosses will probably call with threats of sorting me out or suing. But that won’t be anything new to me.

In the end, though, they always realise that what is written is never with any intended malice but with the view of helping grow the game. For without football, the likes of me – and they too – will probably have no ways of feeding our families.

And on matters football, it is Nedbank Cup weekend and no doubt all of us are eager to see if Acornbush United can add Kaizer Chiefs’ scalp to the Cape Town City one they already have.

Kabokweni Stadium near Nelsprtuit is the place to be tomorrow. See you there.