It was hot at the TUT stadium. That is the detail Tholakele Mnganga remembers most clearly about her first touchline assignment in the Hollywoodbets Super League, a role she had long been too afraid to take on.

“I remember that for a fact. It was very, very hot,” she says.

The EWN sports journalist and anchor, who reads the afternoon bulletins on 947 and 702 and freelances as a researcher for the SABC, did not face the moment alone. Mapula Manyama of the SABC production team talked her through the experience, and Banyana Banyana assistant coach Thinasonke Mbuli was there too. “She also held my hand during that experience, helped me through,” Mnganga recalls.

The league itself she will defend to anyone who listens. “I always call it the best league in the world,” she says. “Let’s sponsor women’s football in this country.”

Stepping onto the touchline is only the latest in a series of leaps that have defined her career. Each began with fear, and each was taken anyway.

The first came at the University of the Witwatersrand, where Mnganga was convinced her future lay in print, “because if your name is not in a byline, then you’re not really doing anything.” Her friend Sibahle Motha, now at the SABC, saw it differently and told her: “You have the voice for radio, take a risk.”

She took it. At Voice of Wits she worked as a sports presenter and producer and co-hosted Sports Hub with Lonwabo Miso, in a studio where every week offered a new chance to experiment.

The second leap was bolder still. Graduating in 2013, she applied for a reporter role at Eyewitness News that called for five years’ experience. She had none. “The worst they could say is no, never come back,” she says. “And I was like, I’m willing to take that risk.”

EWN hired her. She spent her first week shadowing Lelo Mzaca, the reporter she was replacing, before learning on the job: press conferences by day, matches by night and filing from Loftus long after the broadcast had ended. The 13 months that followed, she says, “laid the groundwork for who I am now.”

“I wasn’t just hearing about the story, but I was discovering the story.”

EWN Sports Journalist and Anchor, Tholakele Mnganga

A move to Power FM brought her first anchoring role on commercial radio and an analyst’s seat on ANN7, and with it a new way of thinking about sport. Her guiding question has stayed with her ever since: “Why should people care about the score?”

In 2017 she presented The Beautiful Game on ANN7, a step that asked something radio never had. “To allow myself to be seen. Because this whole time I was allowing myself to be heard.”

She credits Mahreen Chenia with opening the door to television, and admits the adjustment is still a work in progress. “So it was literally about ‘People, trust the voice already’, but sometimes they also want to see the face behind the voice.”

Then came a leap away from sport altogether. Feeling that “I could plan out my week without even the week having unfolded,” Mnganga joined Drum magazine from June 2018 to July 2019, reporting on human interest, entertainment and politics.

Print taught her a lesson that radio’s crowded press conferences had allowed her to forget. “You have to ask the questions. No one is going to do it for you.”

She returned to Primedia in August 2019, and her bulletins today follow a simple test. She imagines a family in the car, with a parent who already knows every result and children asking why they should listen.

“I have to make sure that there’s always a story that appeals to every single person in the car.”

Women’s sport, she believes, earns its place in that test because its realities are no longer hidden. When national teams are forced to plead publicly for World Cup funding, she sees it as her duty to tell listeners. “They’re African champions. Worst part, it’s not even the first time that they’re begging for it.”

“In as much as we’re not telling sunshine stories, we need to show people the realistic picture of what’s happening behind the scenes.”

Her research work for the SABC on Soccer Zone and Sport@10 carries the same purpose behind the scenes. When a commentator drops a well-timed piece of history into a broadcast, there is a good chance it came from her: 

“It’s me! I told him that.”

Context is everything. She wants viewers to understand “why it’s important for Banyana Banyana to be at the third Olympic Games,” and to make the connections that turn names into stories, from Kaitlin Hunt, daughter of coach Gavin Hunt, to Aden McCarthy, whose father is Fabian McCarthy and whose surname also brings Benni McCarthy to mind.

The same applies to the continent’s biggest names. She wants listeners to understand why Barbara Banda’s battle to be the greatest African woman’s footballer matters, “even though she’s finding success at club level, when it comes to international level, there always seems to be some sort of chaos that surrounds her career.”

“Tell me why Caster Semenya is continuing to fight, even though she hasn’t run for ten years.”

“Even though the faces, the players, the national team players may change, the fight is still the same.”

Her own work has not gone unnoticed. Mnganga was a Woman in Radio finalist at the gsport Awards in both 2023 and 2024, and she treats that recognition as shared rather than personal. “A win for Hloni Mtimkulu is a win for me.”

She also sees it as a message to the next generation of women entering newsrooms. “Just because there’s three of us there, when I started, it means when you’re the next generation, there’ll be five of you. And eventually there will be ten of you.”

That generosity shapes how she defines her role. On Sport@10 she recently featured Babalwa Nhlapho, who is launching the Wafa Wafa Gogo’s Diski Cup. “It’s not every day that you hear 60-year-olds who are playing in a World Cup.”

She is equally clear about who the real story belongs to. “Me, I’m just the one that makes the phone calls or writes the article and says, be here at this time.”

Even celebrating established stars such as Kgothatso Montjane serves a wider audience, she says, because …

“There’s still a young girl back home in Limpopo that wants to be reminded that hey, I can still do this thing.”

Some dreams have proved harder to reach. In 2021 Mnganga told gsport that her greatest ambition was to work in an all-female sports department. “It remains the dream,” she says, but shrinking newsrooms have pushed it further away than she had hoped.

A podcast on women athletes and the sacrifices behind their success came closer. Planned as a seven-part series, it had three episodes recorded, with Gloria Brown and Montjane among the guests, before COVID halted production. She hopes to revive it. “The fact that I had gotten it started is enough for me to know that it is possible for it to restart again.”

Meanwhile, she has taken another leap, studying towards a Bachelor of Education through Unisa. A friend’s words convinced her: “You’re a teacher, whether you in the classroom or you’re doing it on air, remember that.”

The lesson she hopes to pass on is the one sport has taught her. “You don’t have to be one thing for the rest of your life.”

It is a philosophy that recognition has reinforced. “The awards see us, the website sees us,” she says of gsport, and every woman who is seen makes it easier for the next to follow.

Asked for her advice to a young woman starting out in sports media, Mnganga needed only a few words. 

“Do it scared. Do it well, do it afraid. Just do it.”

She is certain the reward will come for every athlete and journalist who does. “We’re gonna look up at the screens and we’re gonna say, those are our heroes, those are our champions.”

Main Photo Caption: Tholakele Mnganga, the EWN sports journalist and anchor who reads the afternoon bulletins on 947 and 702 and researches for SABC programmes Soccer Zone and Sport@10, has built a career on taking risks despite her fears, from campus radio at Voice of Wits to anchoring on ANN7 and the Hollywoodbets Super League touchline, as she told gsport on Friday, 23 October 2026. All Photos: Supplied

Photo 2 Caption: Mnganga was a Woman in Radio finalist at the gsport Awards in 2023 and 2024, recognition she shares with the women who came before her.

Photo 3 Caption: Courage has carried Mnganga from Eyewitness News in 2013 to Power FM, ANN7 and Drum magazine, and back to Primedia in August 2019 as an anchor.

Photo 4 Caption: Studying towards a Bachelor of Education through Unisa, Mnganga hopes to teach young people that they never have to be just one thing in life.

Photo 5 Caption: Plans for a podcast on women athletes and their sacrifices remain alive for Mnganga, who recorded three episodes before COVID halted production.