Marked for Lebogang Furman
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Sep 2026
Martín López breaks a bone — 96 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 96 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Junior Gqabashe is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Sep 2026
David Drocco in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Afrique Foot Elite this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2026
At 28 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.
Market28 Sep 2026
Lebogang Furman arrives at 35 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
Market28 Sep 2026
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Afrique Foot Elite have gone and got theirs early.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Sep 2026
Bradley Mkhize 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Morgan Dala at his very best
Marked 9.06. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Bloemfontein Celtic.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Bradley Mkhize was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.80. 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Maritzburg United spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Squad21 Sep 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 ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Hlompho Grobler 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Bloemfontein Celtic have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match9 Sep 2026
A 1‑0 win over Chippa United, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Thamsanqa Furman, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.32
A mark of 8.32 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bloemfontein Celtic they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Thamsanqa Furman has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Bloemfontein Celtic training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hlompho Mothiba 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
3.61. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
Match12 Sep 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Bongani Vilakazi has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Bloemfontein Celtic 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ronwen Furman, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
“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.
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.
Market31 Aug 2026
A conversation is coming this week. Bloemfontein Celtic will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad31 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 ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Bloemfontein Celtic training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lebogang Furman 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Match29 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Mamelodi Sundowns? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
5.47. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.