Marked for Bradley Furman
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market31 Aug 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Bloemfontein Celtic, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match29 Aug 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Bloemfontein Celtic have 4 straight wins of it.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Ramahlwe Lorch delivers — 7.97
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ramahlwe Lorch scored, was marked 7.97, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Juan Fernando Garro 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Bongani Zungu 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.04 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad24 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 13 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 38. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Aug 2026
4 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Bradley Furman takes the afternoon — 10.00
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Bradley Furman provided it, and the 10.00 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Ronwen Furman, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Gift Furman, 35, rolls back the years — 8.09
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.09 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer from Black Aces for Gift Furman 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Bloemfontein Celtic, and it is not being withdrawn.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 49. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match15 Aug 2026
6‑3, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.01, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad17 Aug 2026
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bloemfontein Celtic this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Marked 10.00 — 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Juan Fernando Garro 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match8 Aug 2026
Golden Arrows will want this one forgotten quickly: 7‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Bloemfontein Celtic were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Market10 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Bloemfontein Celtic did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market10 Aug 2026
RC Strasbourg pay $6.3M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Dean Mokoena, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.60
A mark of 7.60 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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Age has not caught Gift Furman yet — 7.95
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.95 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
1 for Ramahlwe Lorch, marked 7.98, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ramahlwe Lorch and Bloemfontein Celtic agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bloemfontein Celtic this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.