Marked for Kermit Mkhize
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Apr 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Free State Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Words at Free State Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Reeve Frosler 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad20 Mar 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Free State Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Rasheed Owolabi 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.
Squad20 Mar 2028
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 May 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 Free State Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kermit Mkhize, and the manager let it.
Squad10 May 2027
Percy Zungu knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Percy Zungu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
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Squad
Questions about Percy Zungu on the training pitch
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Apr 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Rodrigo Dantas
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Free State Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Kermit Mkhize: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Free State Stars have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Ramahlwe Lorch 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 Mar 2027
Rodrigo Dantas damages knee ligaments — 45 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 45 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Ramahlwe Lorch 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Luther Khune asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.