Pioneering sports activist and 2016 gsport Hall of Famer, Cheryl Roberts, has passed away, after a short illness. The news has been confirmed by her family.
Roberts was a veteran South African woman in sport activist, publisher and writer, who was drawn to supporting women’s sport due to apartheid prejudices and discrimination of race and gender in sport.
She was involved in women’s sport from grassroots to international level and became a sports volunteer during her teenage years until she was called to rest.
Roberts attended four universities, two in South Africa and two in England. She didn’t play any sport in University because she despised apartheid and its policies. After completing three degrees in South Africa, she moved to England, where she played sport at university level for the first time.
Previously speaking to gsport, Roberts shared how she recalls how she desperately wanted to write about sport, particularly about how they played anti-apartheid sport.
“One of my happiest moments in my life was when I had my first sports article published in a newspaper.
“It was a story about an oppressed woman hockey player in Durban, Marian Marescia, who was one of South Africa’s best women hockey players, and is also the mother of SA women’s hockey international, Marsha Marescia Cox.”
Roberts certainly enjoyed lending her voice to the voiceless as she told stories of the unknown and shone the spotlight on many South Africans who went on to become world stars.
From the gsport Team, over the years we were inspired by Roberts and her passion to tell the struggle and success stories of women in sport.
Her legacy in sport will continue to flourish as we live out her dream to push the women in sport narrative.
Roberts leaves behind two heart-broken sisters, Vanessa and Sharon.
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