The words a physio says slowly. 21 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
1‑4 against Orlando Pirates, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
The offer from Mamelodi Sundowns for Sandile Khumalo was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bidvest Wits can pretend not to have heard.
An average of 7.00 in a first team he is several years too young for. Bidvest Wits have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Cemran Dansin falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“I did not go to Ajax Cape Town to sit and watch. I want to come back to Bidvest Wits and fight for my place.” 5 appearances in 17 matches say the rest.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bidvest Wits lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
Gomolemo Kekana, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.31
A mark of 8.31 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bidvest Wits can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bidvest Wits this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cemran Dansin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
36 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bidvest Wits lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
7 matches without a win, and then this, against Bloemfontein Celtic. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bidvest Wits this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A 2‑0 win over Bloemfontein Celtic, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The words a physio says slowly. 43 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bidvest Wits have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Gomolemo Kekana is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
In brief
The dugoutS'fiso Hlanti dropped after a run of poor form
The words a physio says slowly. 51 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Marks Munyai and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mory Konaté and Bidvest Wits agree another 1 years.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words at Bidvest Wits training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cemran Dansin is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The words a physio says slowly. 59 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
Gomolemo Kekana, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.80
A mark of 7.80 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Marks Munyai was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
It needed Gomolemo Kekana to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against University of Pretoria, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Sandile Khumalo's mistake
The words a physio says slowly. 66 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Siphelo Baloni and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Words at Bidvest Wits training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cemran Dansin is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
Somebody else is better right now than S'fiso Hlanti
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kagiso Malinga trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Lebogang Williams after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Polokwane City? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Sifiso Mbidana’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Bidvest Wits needing him to play as if none of it matters.
73 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bidvest Wits lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Teboho Billiat and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Cemran Dansin falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad15 Nov 2027
A muscle injury sidelines Pentjie Zulu for 19 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Bidvest Wits will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
81 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bidvest Wits lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sandile Khumalo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout8 Nov 2027
Cemran Dansin is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
The dugout8 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑3 Lebogang Williams left the room before anybody could ask which.
89 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bidvest Wits lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Marks Munyai was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cemran Dansin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
In brief
The dugoutSandile Khumalo is still being punished for one mistake
96 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bidvest Wits lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bidvest Wits this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cemran Dansin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
In brief
SquadBidvest Wits are still strangers to each other
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than S'fiso Hlanti
103 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bidvest Wits lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
6 goals in one match, Kagiso Malinga on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Bidvest Wits and Golden Arrows.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Marked 8.44 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
A performance of 8.38 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
Ethan Brooks was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.25. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
In brief
Player ratingsKagiso Malinga was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Daniel Itodo damages knee ligaments — 111 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 111 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bidvest Wits have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Marks Munyai and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cemran Dansin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Bidvest Wits, another week without a signature from S'fiso Hlanti.
Something was said to Monnapule Saleng and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and S'fiso Hlanti trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Golden Arrows next, and one man in the Bidvest Wits dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bidvest Wits lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Bidvest Wits will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Bidvest Wits is running low.
Everything agreed with Mamelodi Sundowns, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bidvest Wits this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.