By Monwabisi Jimlongo
Years of ‘romancing’ the microphone have delivered very good results to veteran Ligwalagwalafm sport commentator Sibusiso Derrick Mashabane.
Sihlangu-born Mashabane was the most deserving recipient of the MEC Special Award at the Mpumalanga Sport Awards in Nelspruit last weekend.
Soft-spoken Mashabane, whose voice sounds like he’s romancing the microphone whenever he’s doing sport commentary, has done very well since he started his radio career 39 years ago. And the acknowledgement he received from Mpumalanga MEC for Culture, Sport and Recreation Thandi Shongwe is a feather in his cap.
“I feel really privileged and very humbled by this award. It was quite unexpected,” the 62-year-old father of three said about the award.
Initially, Mashabane was not into sport commentating after he began his radio career at Radio Swazi in 1984. It was by chance that Mashabane ventured into sport commentating.
“I started commentating on various sports on radio in 1987. I was already presenting other shows, music, news, talk shows on Radio Swazi, now Ligwalagwalafm, when the regular sport commentators were not available for the 1987 JPS Cup final between Orlando Pirates and Durban Bush Bucks. So I stepped in for my debut commentary,” Mashabane revealed.
“I felt I could really do it. It was horrible. But it was not really hard to break into it. I grew up listening to the radio before the advent of television in 1976. Radio sports commentary before television was different to what it is now.
“Then as a commentator you could get away with a few things as you were the soul provider of information. You could colour your commentary by embellishment and exaggeration and create in the minds of the listeners a picture more attractive than it actually is. TV has taken that away. You have to know a lot about sport these days because listeners are now quite knowledgeable and have very easy access to information.
“As you know sports commentators react to the action in front of them. They react with words. They need to have the vocabulary to describe the game. During my first commentary the appropriate words just could not come. I kept on saying eh, eh, eh… most of that game.”
Besides being a sport commentator, Mashabane, who is a grandfather and a great-grandfather, has business interests in media and property.
