The Free State Stars Chronicle
Squad9 Aug 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Joher Ospina
57 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Free State Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
No sign of nerves from Ronwen Dolly at 21 — 7.90
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ronwen Dolly did not need any: 7.90, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Nobody could get near Dean Vilakazi
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Evidence Williams 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 Free State Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom9 Aug 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Free State Stars
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Thapelo Maseko 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.
Market9 Aug 2027
Orlando Pirates watching Siyabonga Lorch
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Free State Stars have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
The terraces9 Aug 2027
The crowd has taken to Ronwen Dolly
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Market9 Aug 2027
One of our own: Gift Lorch joins the Free State Stars first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Gift Lorch is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
In brief
- Market One of our own: Teboho Kekana joins the Free State Stars first team
- Market Bradley Dala steps up from the Free State Stars academy
- Squad Themba Furman gets it from the manager