15 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
12 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Ronwen 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.
14 goals and a season average of 7.24. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Words at Black Aces training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Erick Lorch 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Black Aces will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
13 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
The terraces11 Dec 2028
The mood at Black Aces has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Polokwane City left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad11 Dec 2028
Words at Black Aces training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Erick Lorch 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Black Aces are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
10 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.41 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
14 goals and a season average of 7.40. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad20 Nov 2028
Words at Black Aces training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Erick Lorch 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.
Thamsanqa Mokoena 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.
A point taken on 94 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Black Aces this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Erick Lorch 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.
A point taken on 86 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Match16 Sep 2028
Ronwen Lorch wins it after the whistle should have gone
94 minutes played. Ronwen Lorch found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Ajax Cape Town went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Two goals and a mark of 9.17 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
A mark of 8.65 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Erick Lorch was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Black Aces have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
S'fiso Hlanti and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 May 2028
Thami 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Black Aces, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Erick Lorch has been around long enough to know what the spring feels like when it goes wrong, and he can feel it. A dressing room that is frightened plays like one.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Black Aces can pretend not to have heard.
S'fiso Hlanti 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.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Words at Black Aces training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thami Mkhize 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 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.