Marked for Dane Van Hattum
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 Jul 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Dane Van Hattum
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Southern United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Market3 Jul 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Southern United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Lungelo Kunene 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.
Market3 Jul 2028
A conversation is coming this week. Southern United will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad3 Jul 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Chris Van Hattum and Southern United agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Jul 2028
The medical room confirms 28 days on the sidelines for Tim Waine, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match26 Jun 2028
7 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad26 Jun 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Dane Van Hattum
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Southern United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market26 Jun 2028
“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.
Squad26 Jun 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Southern United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Mohamed Ehab knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Southern United, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces19 Jun 2028
The mood at Southern United has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Boardroom19 Jun 2028
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Southern United
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad19 Jun 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Dane Van Hattum
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Southern United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Jun 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Dane Van Hattum
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Southern United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market12 Jun 2028
“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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Marco Payne: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Southern United have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market12 Jun 2028
The bid was some way short and Southern United did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Monty Stamatelopoulos is 16, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad11 Oct 2027
102 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Southern United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Samukelo Mlaba 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Callum Nelson and Southern United agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market11 Oct 2027
He is 16, and nobody at Southern United signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Market11 Oct 2027
Stefan Barbarouses is 15, and Southern United have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Market11 Oct 2027
He is 17, and nobody at Southern United signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.