Shadrack Ngakongakos@thevillagemag.co.za
06 JANUARY 2021
Meet the people’s person, focused, motivated, future orientated, and like everybody else, he is not shy to express his feelings. Inspired by Eazy Matjila, probably the best news anchor of all time on SABC2, Andries Teffo chats to The Village Mag on his journey in the radio industry and his love for sports commentary. He is one of the most adored commentators at the Andries Chicha Top32 Tournament at Marapyane.
Andries Mokoka Teffo was born on the 10th of May 1985 in a rural village of Marapyane, he was raised by strong, loving, god fearing single mother of four, and he is the only guy amongst ladies. Andries went to Selallo-Moepi pre-school in 1991 and graduated to Ikageleng Primary School in 1992, then went to Mmasekaseka Middle School before he proceeded to Moepi Senior Secondary School to complete his matric in 2004. After matric he relocated to Hammanskraal permanently to further his studies.
By profession Andries Teffo is a news reader, news anchor, bulletin translator and he also likes the title of being called Mr T the commentator. He recently joined the programming department as a presenter hosting a show called ‘’Tlatsa Botshelo’’ every Monday to Friday from 10am to 2pm on Moretele Community Radio (MCR) FM on the frequency 106.6 alongside a lady by the name of Lady-D.
‘’Dreams delayed are not dreams denied’’, that is what pushes Andries Teffo to wake up and work hard, he always wanted to work in the media industry since his primary school days, and he is willing to climb even higher and hope he lands in the SABC one day. That is how determined he is. At some point while growing up; Andries Teffo wanted to be a private investigator, almost hard to believe and we can thank the stars for that because then we would have missed a lot on the man we raving about now on radio.
Few names were instrumental in Andries’ decision to pursue a career in media, he grew up watching football and listening to commentary at the same time, and radios were on “fleek” back then. Baba Mthethwa, Rudolf Letsoalo and the late Cebo Manyapelo who was famously known by the phrase ‘’football haena therefore’’ back in the days on commentary. Most of the time Mr-T would imitate these great legends and the funny part is that he did not like to be disturbed when watching/listening to a soccer game, he wanted to hear and see everything.
‘’There are limited opportunities in the field’’ he said, but the youth should not be discouraged if they love the media industry. Media studies consists of different fields such as Journalism, printing and broadcasting, just to name a few and as a person you must push on the field you desire and make the most of it.
“You cannot predict the future and what you desire maybe God is planning something else for you, just take life as it comes and hope the future brings great things. Life is a bit difficult now with the arrival of the pandemic (Covid-19) and recently we have seen probably the best local soccer tournament in my community of Marapyane the Andries Chicha Top32 Soccer Tournament being stopped/postponed four days before the final. This shows just how unpredictable life is. We leave everything in God’s hands. God bless the front line workers and thank you The Village Mag for listening to my story.” concluded the bubbly commentator.
