Marked for Ramahlwe Grobler
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match23 Jan 2027
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 14 matches without defeat is a foundation Ajax Cape Town did not have in the autumn.
Match23 Jan 2027
Black Aces will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Ajax Cape Town were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Market25 Jan 2027
“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 ratings25 Jan 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.34 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Thato Sibiya, 20, steals the show — 8.28
Marked 8.28 at 20, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Market25 Jan 2027
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax Cape Town they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market25 Jan 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Ajax Cape Town have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Williams Kekana and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad25 Jan 2027
At 21, Percy Mabunda is already the best thing here
An average of 7.01 in a first team he is several years too young for. Ajax Cape Town have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match9 Jan 2027
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 12 matches without defeat is a foundation Ajax Cape Town did not have in the autumn.
Market11 Jan 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ajax Cape Town people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market11 Jan 2027
The bid was some way short and Ajax Cape Town did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Percy Mabunda, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.66
A mark of 7.66 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.
Market11 Jan 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Percy Mabunda is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Williams Kekana 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.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Match9 Jan 2027
It finished 2‑0, and it was Percy Mabunda’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Ajax Cape Town.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match21 Nov 2026
Nobody wants to play Ajax Cape Town right now
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Rivaldo Mothiba 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 ratings23 Nov 2026
Sifiso Tau runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Ajax Cape Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdoulaye Mariko 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 ratings23 Nov 2026
Marked 7.67. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Squad23 Nov 2026
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.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Kermit Modiba, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Ajax Cape Town told Abdoulaye Mariko something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Both of them Sifiso Tau's — 8.93
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.93, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Match7 Nov 2026
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.90, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Match7 Nov 2026
It finished 3‑1, and it was Sifiso Tau’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Ajax Cape Town.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Rivaldo Mothiba and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The terraces9 Nov 2026
He is 20 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.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdoulaye Mariko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Percy Mabunda, 21, steals the show — 7.89
Marked 7.89 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad2 Nov 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 Ajax Cape Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces2 Nov 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Abdoulaye Mariko 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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.47, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Percy Mabunda is the division's best young player this month
At 21 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Ajax Cape Town will try very hard not to make too much of it.
The dugout2 Nov 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.
Loan watch2 Nov 2026
“I did not go to Djoliba to sit and watch. I want to come back to Ajax Cape Town and fight for my place.” 4 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Percy Mabunda
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Percy Mabunda has come out of that comparison in the side, and Ajax Cape Town have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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Squad
Teboho Mphela falls out with a teammate over standards
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Player ratings
Sifiso Tau runs at them all day
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 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 Ajax Cape Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A move Abdoulaye Mariko would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Abdoulaye Mariko is living that version at Ajax Cape Town, and it tends to show in the first month.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 13 signed and 4 gone
That is the business done at Ajax Cape Town until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Ajax Cape Town will try again when the window opens; Free State Stars may not be selling by then.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Bandile Shandu 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Ajax Cape Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdoulaye Mariko 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Looking ahead7 Sep 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Bandile Shandu’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Ajax Cape Town needing him to play as if none of it matters.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market10 Aug 2026
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Tondela had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ramahlwe Mokoena and Ajax Cape Town agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$290.0K on the table at Kaizer Chiefs. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Rivaldo Mothiba 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.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Rivaldo Ngcobo 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 dugout10 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Lebogang Mabunda is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.