Reyaad Pieterse and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Bidvest Wits and Black Aces in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Marked 9.58. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Bidvest Wits.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Thami Mkhize 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.
Marked 9.10 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Bidvest Wits will not try tonight.
Position 14, 10 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Luke Baartman, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.48
A mark of 8.48 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.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.86 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It had gone 6 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Thami Mkhize 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Luke Baartman has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Thami Mkhize 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.
Level with 89 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Bidvest Wits had all but put away. Ajax Cape Town will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
31 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Nobody's fault and entirely his: a goal that goes into the book with his name against it and nothing about it intended. Bidvest Wits deserved better, and so did he.
0‑4 to Kaizer Chiefs, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
$110.0K settles it between the clubs for Eva Bienvenu
Chippa United have accepted the money. What Bidvest Wits do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Bidvest Wits are no longer polite ones.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 46 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Bidvest Wits until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Etiosa Ighodaro was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $3.3M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Bidvest Wits training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thami Mkhize 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.
S'fiso Hlanti 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.
In brief
Transfer targetsThe window shuts on the Donay Jansen deal
1‑5 to Orlando Pirates, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
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.
$470.0K on the table at Kaizer Chiefs. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Bidvest Wits and Orlando Pirates in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Daylon Claasen 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Thami Mkhize 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Nkosi Gumede
0‑3 to Bloemfontein Celtic, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Thami Mkhize was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Nobody left the Bidvest Wits dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
28 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.