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When Mamelodi Sundowns invites journalists to a press day at their base in Chloorkop, we are often allowed to choose which players to interview, and in most cases, players avoid speaking to the media.
READ MORE: Mngqithi describes Anele as a ‘special daughter of the earth’
Then we have to smooth them over with gentle persuasion, until they agree to answer some tough questions from the media. I remember a time when everyone wanted to talk to Anele Ngcongca, but he had already taken a shower after training, so we waited while we interviewed some of his teammates.
After a while, he left the dressing room in the direction of his car and had to walk through a sea of journalists, who were keen to speak to him at the time. As he walked towards us, he smiled, noting that we had our microphones, recorders, and cameras on standby. He literally laughed by himself before reaching us.
He calmly greeted us all, apparently throwing bait, but no one bit him. We all knew we wanted to talk to him, he was enjoying a great streak at the time. In the end, someone worked up the courage to ask him to come and answer a few questions.
Ngcongca chose not to respond to that request, he just smiled in our direction and continued to walk away very slowly, showing us that he is not running away, but that he does not like to talk either. Normally when this happens we just walk up to a player and get on with the interview, like it or not, frankly we don’t care – the editors want the stories.
But with Anele it was different. Neither of us had the courage and guts to intimidate him into speaking to us. We stood there, completely in awe of how he smiled coming out of an interview, and that no one had the balls to chase him. We talked amongst ourselves, “ah bafathu, siyam’yeka vele?” Loosely translated as, ‘are we going to let him go like this? He heard us murmur and continued to smile, probably feeling untouchable. However, the big gesture, much to the chagrin of many reporters, is that he took the time to say goodbye to the group of us while waving and smiling.
That was by far the friendliest snub of an interview I’ve ever seen. A walk accompanied by a smile and a farewell is something unheard of. Of course, we got countless interviews with him on other days and he was a true gentleman of the game.
Rest in eternal peace, Anele “Gugulethu” Ngcongca.
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