Marked for Sifiso Manyama
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 42. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad18 Oct 2027
A fracture rules Carlo De Luca out for 36 days
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.
Match18 Oct 2027
8 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad18 Oct 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Black Aces may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad18 Oct 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 Black Aces this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match16 Oct 2027
0‑1 to Kaizer Chiefs, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match13 Feb 2027
No end in sight to Black Aces's wait for a win
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Black Aces has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad15 Feb 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 Black Aces this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match13 Feb 2027
No clean sheets in sight for Black Aces
4 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
No hiding place for Ítalo
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ítalo, and the manager let it.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Black Aces training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ramahlwe Mothiba 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 38. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match23 Jan 2027
Chastening afternoon for Black Aces
A 0‑3 beating by Orlando Pirates was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Market25 Jan 2027
The bid was some way short and Black Aces did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market25 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Match23 Jan 2027
The wait goes on for Black Aces
5 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Ítalo 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Themba Mkhize
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market25 Jan 2027
The phone has started ringing about Ronwen Erasmus again, and this time the name on the line is Kaizer Chiefs. Black Aces are listening politely and promising nothing.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 35. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market4 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Black Aces may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Black Aces know it.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Keagan Modiba is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad4 Jan 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 Black Aces this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match22 Aug 2026
Chastening afternoon for Black Aces
A 2‑6 beating by Mamelodi Sundowns was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market24 Aug 2026
“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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Ramahlwe Mokotjo, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.70
A mark of 7.70 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A chastening introduction for Siyabonga Vilakazi — 5.71
It is a hard way to meet a crowd. Marked 5.71 on the day he was handed the shirt, and the important thing now is what the next one looks like.
Match22 Aug 2026
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Black Aces and Mamelodi Sundowns in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad24 Aug 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 Black Aces this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Sifiso 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Ramahlwe Mothiba at his very best
Marked 8.03. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Black Aces.