Minnie Magic

Television empress Minnie Dlamini left the SABC’s Soccer Zone viewers heartbroken when she ended her four year romance with the Monday night show. She came in, not like a wrecking ball, but more like Angelina Jolie in Mr and Mrs Smith: cute and cuddly on the outside but driven and hardcore on the inside. Once she melted all those hardened football supporters’hearts, she unsheathed a painful blow. But, with a new show premiering soon on SuperSport, Minnie is back to mend those broken hearts. Here she speaks exclusively to KICKOFF on why she loves sports so much and what it was like to be the first person in a skirt to co-present Soccer Zone.

- Sibusiso Mjikeliso

To sit across the table from Minnie Dlamini is a feeling akin to being moth that’s flying too close to a flame. Her presence distracts from everything else in the room; her beauty, to borrow from Can Themba, is obtrusive to the eyes when you look at her and to the mind when you look away. But how quickly she makes you forget about her image and makes you zero in on what she’s saying. It’s a skill she used expertly in the face of testosterone-fuelled apprehension. She’s almost dressed too casually to believe as she sits inside comfortable torn jeans and a t-shirt – a look that says she’s here to reveal what’s inside, not what’s on the outside.

The switch from entertainment to sports was very easy. I grew up playing sport. I played almost everything from provincial tennis and netball to a bit of touch rugby and contact rugby, cricket and I was a sprinter. My dad hoped that I would be the next Serena Williams – but it wasn’t to be [she chuckles].

I’ve been going to stadiums for as long as I can remember, with my dad (July Dlamini), who was a big soccer lover. I knew that sport was always in my blood and I knew that if I wanted to branch into that field, I could make an impact. Finding myself watching games at times, I realised that the players’ lives were so glamorous and they lived in amazing houses and did the most incredible things, but no one saw that side of them; they were just seen as Kasi boys.

What was very important for me was to get South Africa to see them in a different light. So I presented a segment on SABC, where I spent one-on-one time with the players and we would do something cool together – go-karting, putt-putt, bungee jumping off the Soweto Towers – and we really got a chance to know them and who they were.