Stuart Kiwanuka Mutebi:A Tribute to the Voice of football.

Writes Lambert Brian Rusoke.

A football voice for decades, compelled with passion, precision, authority and inclusiveness. For decades on end,local FM radio frequencies were voiced over by Stuart Kiwanuka Mutebi,with football commentary and results being brought to the comfort of our cars and living rooms by a gentleman who used his?voice to describe?and tell a live football story to perfection.

This , endeared many to love and follow?live football events on radio stations that he appeared,from CBS FM, Super FM,Star FM,and NBS Television (finally attached a face to the voice).

Stuart Mutebi Kiwanuka, affectionately known as "Stuart",to the football and sports loving Ugandan corridors ,breathed his last May 20th,after a lengthy battle with illness that put him off the radio airwaves for close to two years.

?Here?was a?man whom generations of football fans heard reading the Saturday afternoon football results on the airwaves,live football commentaries from Nakivubo, Namboole,Mbale, Wankulukuku,and more commonly nowadays the European football leagues,and his voice became almost as synonymous with anything called sports.?

Just like James Alexander Gordon(rip),the BBC results reader ,who swayed world audiences to litsen in to results of the English league every Saturday evenings,Stuart?would say with an eager upwards inflection suggesting the home side had won, before adding "tanno",(as in five goals)"Bamututte Mukono",he would emphasize.Then he would lower his voice to indicate bad news for the next team: "Mbale Heroes, sifuri(nil ,for Swahili),or "kiiso Kya mbuzi(for luganda to imply nil ).

Listeners may have almost felt they knew him, and his popularity with fellow broadcasters was a key factor in ensuring his longevity as a Sports Journalist/anchor/presenter/pundit.

Seemingly ever cheerful, affable and jolly,his inclusivity,with especially the younger journalists was always something to cheer.

On my part,as a teenager in the 90's?fascinated by the game of football, especially local football,Stuart was the voice that endeared me to devolop the passion of the game.

While at Namilyango College ,CBS FM joined the airwaves,and Stuart plus his CBS Team won my heart.With small radios and litsening from the tail end of our beloved "Wembley" pitch ,where we could see from a far ,the lighting of the newly built Nelson Mandela?Stadium,Namboole,as it hosted it's first league game,a Kampala derby between SC Villa and Express FC,Stuart was at hand to give us the live updates as and how things were turning up.The description of Fred Tamale's winner was something out of the roof.

He made sure the litseners understand each and every player on pitch, giving a brief history,of whoever touched the ball.The nicknames were part of the story tales .He always mentioned things like,

Edgar"Muzungu" Watson,Hassan Mubiru "owe'mamba,Andrew "Fimbo" Mukasa,.... corner specialist,to mention but a few .

I finally crossed paths with Stuart physically,when I had a short stint in the media as a Monitor Sports reporter,2006-7.Nigeria ,led by Kanu Nwankwo had come to town and we had taken our press seats , ready to follow proceedings.

I was part of the Monitor coverage team with Innocent Ndawula(player interviews),Eden Kironde(match day report),and Eddie Chicco(Photography ).I had been tasked by my editor Mark Namanya,to?cover the post match comments from the Nigerians,coached by the legendary Euro '96 German coach winner,Berti Vogts.

He wasn't ready to have any of it after the loss inflicted by a well marshalled Uganda Cranes team.Swammed by journalists in the dressing corridors,with Stuart part of us ,to get "news bites " for his litseners,Vogts decided to ignore the local journalists,and talked to the foreign ones only, speaking in German, leaving most of us "lost " in translation.

Stuart was quick to assuage our worries with a joke,"omusajja asazeewo kozesa ludica",to which we all burst into loud laughters.He however went on,to befriend a foreign journalist,who helped translate what Vogts had uttered.

Stuart wasn't yet done.He told us to litsen to his night updates on radio understand to what had been interpreted...lol..but he was humble to mention to most of us(young journalists),to use Vogts' reluctance to speak a language we all understood (Vogts could speak English),as a case of "another story reporting angle"."Think outside the box",is what he told us."For what about doing a postmatch report,with Vogts' reluctance character as the leading tone to a story?",he tickled our thinking.

Yes....the answer was with us?"Bad Loser German"."Germans hate to lose","Red Faced Vogts slams journalists ",.etc etc...I started to think of the headline next day.

?Listening to the results come in on the radio was a shared, pseudoreligious experience.

The rest of the justification comes in the form of simple pleasures, and the greatest of those was always the post-match ritual of listening to the other results in the car afterwards, being soothed back into human reality by the warm tones of Stuart Kiwanuka Mutebi , the man who read them out on the airwaves.

Because obviously, no football fan lives in a bubble of only caring about one result. When you're from allover the place,you get two teams -- one from where you're from, and one from where you live now.So the Tooro United?result had to be listened out for as well as the Mbale Heroes one, and that didn't come until after the late evening sports programs.

I did follow Stuart's voice whenever he changed frequency.His voiceover was unique,and all those that came after him,were playing in the legendary's shadow.At Star FM,he doubled as a Sunday morning,oldies show host.Playing music of the years gone by,and would quickly relate the date of the song's release,to what sporting event was transpiring then.

A football man Indeed.That he was one of the pioneers of?City Cubs Club,a KCC FC feeder club in the 70's,says alot of a man who lived sport all through.

Rest with the angels Stuart.Its Full Time.