Marked for Teboho Mkhize
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market29 Mar 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad29 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ajax Cape Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Mar 2027
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad29 Mar 2027
5 new faces, and Ajax Cape Town are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Andile Mkhize 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.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Mar 2027
Itumeleng Dolly 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 Mar 2027
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Ajax Cape Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dean Mokotjo 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Ajax Cape Town would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
Khama Dala gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Khama Dala is on it.
Market15 Mar 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Teboho Khune’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 32. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match1 Mar 2027
Position 4 on 62 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Market1 Mar 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad1 Mar 2027
A one-man rearguard from Nkosi Gumede
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad1 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ajax Cape Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dean Mokotjo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match27 Feb 2027
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Keagan Mokotjo after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad1 Mar 2027
6 new faces, and Ajax Cape Town are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
A brace, and Teboho Billiat takes the afternoon — 8.95
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Teboho Billiat provided it, and the 8.95 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Itumeleng Dolly 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.
Match13 Feb 2027
It finished 2‑1, and it was Teboho Billiat’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Ajax Cape Town.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
The manager makes an example of Teboho Mkhize
“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.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
Sazi Gumbi left out for the big one
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Sazi Gumbi will call it something else in private.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Keagan Mokotjo on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Squad15 Feb 2027
A season average of 7.28 with 3 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andile Mkhize was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match30 Jan 2027
Jomo Cosmos will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Ajax Cape Town were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Market1 Feb 2027
Teboho Mkhize hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ajax Cape Town can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.95, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Window shuts: 4 in, 1 out at Ajax Cape Town
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 4 arrived, 1 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Market1 Feb 2027
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Thamsanqa Phiri reports back to Ajax Cape Town with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Squad1 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ajax Cape Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Ajax Cape Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dean Mokotjo 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.
Transfer targets1 Feb 2027
Ajax Cape Town asked and Estudiantes said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The terraces1 Feb 2027
He is 23 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.