Marked for Marco Sutton
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Joe Van Hattum
74 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Team Wellington lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad7 Sep 2026
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Team Wellington training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Soufiane Aznabet 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
Steady
Squad24 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Joe Van Hattum
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Team Wellington lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer from Okzhetpes for James Wood was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market24 Aug 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 The request is on a desk at Team Wellington, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Marco Sutton 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 Team Wellington this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Team Wellington training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Soufiane Aznabet 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Team Wellington know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
Joe Van Hattum damages knee ligaments — 96 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 96 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer from WaiBOP United for Marco Sutton was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A move Ogbu Ogechukwu 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. Ogbu Ogechukwu is living that version at Team Wellington, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Marco Sutton 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Soufiane Aznabet 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
Joe Van Hattum damages knee ligaments — 104 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 104 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Chris Lewis and Team Wellington agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Marco Sutton 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
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
Marco Sutton 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 Team Wellington this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Kosta Bell 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Chris Lewis 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 Chris Lewis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.