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.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.25 for the rest of it.
Sven Yidah 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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Dennis Kweyu 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Muranga Seal will make the call about Bob Cetric this week. APS Bomet have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 16 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at APS Bomet this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
AFC Leopards left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at APS Bomet training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dennis Kweyu 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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Rodgers Kipkemoi had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Ulinzi Stars were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what APS Bomet can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at APS Bomet this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Khama Lorch has just signed for APS Bomet, and for once the answer mattered.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Bidco United will make the call about Morgan Ambuka this week. APS Bomet have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kaizer Chiefs lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kaizer Chiefs this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Words at Kaizer Chiefs training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rushwin Dortley 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.
A conversation is coming this week. Kaizer Chiefs will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad12 Jun 2028
6 new faces, and Kaizer Chiefs 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.
Not a month, not a run of form — a whole season of being the best 21-year-old anybody in this division could put on a pitch. This is the honour that gets mentioned for the rest of his career.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Kaizer Chiefs have had the benefit of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kaizer Chiefs this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“I did not go to Bidvest Wits to sit and watch. I want to come back to Kaizer Chiefs and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Kaizer Chiefs have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kaizer Chiefs this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Kaizer Chiefs training over how hard people work
Brandon Petersen 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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at Kaizer Chiefs training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mduduzi Shabalala 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.
“I watch every Kaizer Chiefs game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Bidvest Wits runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The loan was meant to give him football. 4 games and 0 goals later he is back at Kaizer Chiefs no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their doing.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Ajax Cape Town? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
“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 Bidvest Wits, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Bidvest Wits training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mehdi Bourabia 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bidvest Wits this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 5.06. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Bidvest Wits know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.