Marumo Gallants FC

Bloemfontein is a rugby town before it is a football one, and for years the city's Premier Soccer League following had to make do with borrowed teams and borrowed grounds. Marumo Gallants filled that gap only from 2021, and even then arrived with a history that belonged to somewhere else. The club existed first as Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila, formed in 2017 when it bought a National First Division place from Milano United, then reached the top flight in 2020 after owner Lawrence Mulaudzi purchased Bidvest Wits' Premier League licence.

The takeover that mattered came in January 2021, when businessman Abram Sello bought the club out of financial trouble. By June that year it had a new name: Marumo, meaning sword in Sepedi, paired with Gallants. Sello said it was meant to capture the courage the team had shown surviving relegation the previous season. For its first two years under that name the club had nowhere permanent to play, renting grounds that included Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane, before settling at Bloemfontein's Dr. Petrus Molemela Stadium from the 2024/25 season. The 48,000-capacity Free State Stadium gets called on when the crowd is expected to outgrow home comforts.

The trophy on the shelf, the 2021 Nedbank Cup, was actually won under the old name, Chippa United beaten 1-0 in the final. Gallants got back to that final in 2022 as Marumo Gallants but lost to Mamelodi Sundowns in extra time. The following season the club reached the semi-finals of the CAF Confederation Cup before Tanzania's Young Africans ended the run. Coach Dylan Kerr, who has taken charge three separate times, was in the dugout for that continental run, while Ranga Chivaviro remains the club's record scorer, a hat-trick against Chippa United among his best-remembered performances.

Locally the club answers to Bahlabane Ba Ntwa, warriors of war, and its only real rivalry is close to home: the Bloemfontein derby against Siwelele FC, the other side sharing the same city.