Hamba Kahle Isaac "Shakes" Kungoane
29 May 2014
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africans (Numsa) joins the soccer-loving South Africans in mourning the sad departure from the land of the living of the legendary former Kaizer Chiefs midfield maestro and ball distributor par excellence Isaac "Shakes" Kungoane.
We send our warmth and deepest condolences to his wife, children, relatives, colleagues, Kaizer Chiefs and Supersport channel and his football union, SAFPU. Shakes as he was popularly known in football, was amongst the great dribbling wizards and whom nature had endowed with considerable talent to do magical things with the ball. We extend our words of appreciation to him for sharing his skills to entertain the millions of soccer lovers in our country and beyond our borders.
We lower our red banners not as a tribute to death's vengeance, but as an honour to Kungoane' s dazzling and dribbling prowess on the pitch and his wealth of humanism outside the pitch. Shakes, met his final day, when he was destined for greatness as an esteemed football commentator and analyst. His jovial commentary and incisive analysis, and loud laughter will be missed by millions of adoring football fans in our country.
Shakes was not only a footballer, he was also a trade unionist and an ardent founding member of the SA Football Players Union (SAFPU). We salute the enormous contribution he made in making sure that soccer players, as worker's, are organised under a progressive trade union to fight for the improvement of their status and conditions in Premier Soccer League (PSL) and lower divisions.
We find solace in that, wherever he is in the nooks and crannies of the universe, he joins a galaxy of great players, such as Ace Ntsoelenge, Ernest"Botsotso" Makhanya, Thabang "Chillies" Lebese, Lesley "Slow Poison" Manyathela, Thomas Madigage and countless others.
It cannot be that the working class, black and white, who are the ones who play sport and produce the entertainment we all enjoy, cannot have their families and friends enjoy the fruits of their labour on the sports fields, simply because the profit mongers want to make money out of every working class activity!
Therefore, to honour Shakes memory and his prowess in football, we call for the amendment of the Broadcasting Act, as part of making sure that all Broadcasting Rights of national sporting codes, as national assets of our people, should be in the hands of the public broadcaster - the SABC, as opposed to profit-chasing private broadcasters - thus enabling millions of working class families to enjoy sport on TV.
To borrow a popular Nguni idiom "Mhlab'awunoni"! Death shall not be proud!
Hamba Kahle Shakes!
Statement issued by Castro Ngobese, NUMSA national spokesperson, May 29 2014
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