A brace, and Teboho Dolly takes the afternoon — 8.35
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Teboho Dolly provided it, and the 8.35 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Black Aces they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Black Aces and Bloemfontein Celtic, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Beaten 2‑4, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Dean Manyama 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.
Mthokozisi Xaba 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 49 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Black Aces is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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 The request is on a desk at Black Aces, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Black Aces training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dean Manyama 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Black Aces will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Black Aces lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Beaten 2‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Dean Manyama 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 medical room confirms 17 days on the sidelines for Erick Ngcobo, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
Teboho Dolly was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.02. 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 111 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Black Aces lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Teboho Dolly will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Black Aces the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Thami Mkhize commits to Black Aces for another 2 years.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words at Black Aces training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dean Manyama 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.
Still no offer on the table, and Mthokozisi Xaba’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
$200.0K is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 95 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
He is going to Bloemfontein Celtic, the club has $200.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
“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 Black Aces, and it is not being withdrawn.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kermit Mabunda is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Kaizer Chiefs go through and Black Aces go home, 0‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
“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.
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
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.