Bidvest Wits F.C.
association football club
Bidvest Wits Football Club (simply often known as Wits University F.C. or Wits) was a South African professional football club from Johannesburg which played in the Premiership the first-tier of South African league football system. It was nicknamed "The Clever Boys" or "The Students" because of the close affiliation with the University of the Witwatersrand.
The club was sold at the conclusion of the 2019–20 Premiership season. This after Bidvest confirmed that it had reached an agreement for the sale of the club's top-flight status to Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila (TTM).
History
The club has its roots at Wits University in Johannesburg, where it was formed in 1921 by the university's Students Representatives Council. The club competed in a variety of tournaments and leagues before eventually winning promotion to the National Football League in 1975 – then South Africa's top domestic league.
During the 1970s the club produced some of South Africa's finest players – amongst them goalkeeper Gary Bailey, who went on to play for Manchester United and England and defender Richard Gough, who later played for Dundee United, Rangers, Everton and Scotland.
The club won their first major title in 1978 – winning the Mainstay Cup after beating Kaizer Chiefs in the final of the competition. Six years later they picked up the BP Top 8, and a year later in 1985 they again beat Chiefs, this time in the final of the JPS Knockout Cup. The club finished 6th in the inaugural NSL season in 1985 while Scottish striker Frank McGrellis was crowned the league's top scorer with a total of 29 league and cup goals.
The public source identifies “Bidvest Wits F.C.” as association football club. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bidvest, Wits and association.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q857048. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2019, 1921, 1975 and 1978.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bidvest Wits F.C.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.