The words a physio says slowly. 39 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. David Fernande is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason PWD Bamenda will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” PWD Bamenda have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Odrick Bisah will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around PWD Bamenda the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Words at PWD Bamenda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Naledi Hlongwane 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.
Squad4 Mar 2030
David Fernande is the division's best young player this month
At 21 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. PWD Bamenda will try very hard not to make too much of it.
Zacharie Ebogo 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” PWD Bamenda have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around PWD Bamenda they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PWD Bamenda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Bogard Agbor commits to PWD Bamenda for another 3 years.
Squad31 Dec 2029
Words at PWD Bamenda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Naledi Hlongwane 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 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PWD Bamenda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A 1‑0 win over Aigle Royal de la Menoua, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Nobody at PWD Bamenda will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
9 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” David Fernande and PWD Bamenda agree another 5 years.
Marked 8.70 — 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad26 Nov 2029
Words at PWD Bamenda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Junior Trésor Bembong 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PWD Bamenda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason PWD Bamenda will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The 88th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Serge Daura decided nobody was going anywhere. Fauve Azur Elite had no time left to answer.
The offer from Cotonsport Garoua for David Fernande 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.
A new deal for the man in the dugout, and the clearest thing a board can say without calling a press conference about it. Stability is cheap to promise and expensive to deliver.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
7 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
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.