Less than 24 hours after the Central Coast Mariners captured national attention with their historic treble of titles, SBS quietly released a documentary, this film told a similarly, yet arguably more remarkable, football story that has almost disappeared from the collective memory of Australian sports fans.
In 2014, only two years after their existence, the Western Sydney Wanderers won the most prestigious club competition available to Australian teams: AFC Champions League.
They achieved this victory in front of 11 of their own fans, due to the travel difficulties and restrictions, and 60,000 enraged Saudi Arabians, overcoming challenges such as bus crashes, hotel raids, public taunts, and laser pointers aimed at their eyes. Despite these obstacles, the Wanderers persevered, becoming the first Australian club to win the continent’s most prestigious trophy.
However, this narrative appears to have faded into the pages of history, scarcely acknowledged in broader discussions concerning pivotal moments or memories that have moulded Australian sports, the question is why?
This is what journalist Marc Fennell sought to explore this question in his latest documentary, “Came From Nowhere.” The film delves into the inception and initial triumphs of one of Australia’s most intriguing, yet currently contentious, football clubs.
“What became very apparent very quickly, and what interested me, were two things,” Fennell told ABC Sport.
“One was this truly incredible, Hollywood-esque, fairytale arc of a team that literally went from no name, no players, nowhere to play, nowhere to train, no coach to winning the highest championship you can as an Australian club.
“Then there was the other side, which was that the active support group had gotten lots of coverage. The RBB (Red and Black Bloc), there were reams and reams of news and footage of them. And I felt like those two things were linked somehow, and they were both stories worth telling, but we were trying to work out: how did they intersect?”
For years, the region had fostered a vibrant football community, nurturing numerous Socceroos who honed their skills at clubs such as Marconi, Blacktown, Parramatta, and Sydney United in the former National Soccer League.
In 2012, when Clive Palmer’s Gold Coast United ceased operations, the opportunity arose for the Wanderers. With the FFA requiring ten teams for upcoming television rights negotiations, but facing difficulty in finding a financial sponsor to establish the team in time for the 2012-13 season, they took matters into their own hands. The FFA secured a $4 million government grant to establish a professional football club in Sydney’s west, essentially from the ground up.
Following numerous community forums and fan surveys held across the region, various topics including club colours, playing style, home grounds, club values, and proposed names were thoroughly discussed and debated. On June 25, it was revealed that the club would officially be named the Western Sydney Wanderers, paying tribute to Australia’s first-ever registered football club, Wanderers FC, established in 1880. The club’s colours were designated as red and black.
During their inaugural pre-season match in St Marys, 4,500 attendees witnessed a small gathering on a grassy hill where a few songs, penned over the previous four months, were practised. This laid the foundation for the Red and Black Bloc, an active supporter’s group integral to the club’s narrative alongside the players.
Despite their first match in the A-League at the old Parramatta Stadium ending in a scoreless game, for the supporters standing behind a banner proclaiming “Football comes home,” the result on the scoreboard was inconsequential. What truly mattered was that they now had a club they could proudly call their own.
“This is a love story between a town and its team, between football and its fans. And every love story has ebbs and flows: it has moments of high euphoria, and then it has bickering and tempestuous fighting,” Fennell said to ABC Sport.
The film then tracks the team’s debut season in 2012-13, starting slow with no goals or wins in the initial month but swiftly gaining momentum. They achieved a league-record of 10 consecutive victories, challenging prominent clubs like their now-local rivals, Sydney FC, as they climbed the ladder.
With each victory, the fan base of the Wanderers expanded. In a remarkable show of support, 10,000 Wanderers faithful journeyed to Newcastle for their last regular season match. Mark Bridge’s two goals contributed to a 3-0 triumph, clinching their inaugural Premier’s Plate in an extraordinary debut season.
The film then delves into its second focal point: the club’s fanbase and the escalating tensions arising between its active supporters and the authorities.
Certain factions of the RBB posed challenges for the local police, exhibiting behaviours such as violence, property damage, intimidation, and the use of flares. This led to an increase in police presence at home games.
The RBB’s customary pre-match procession in Parramatta, along with the use of flares, megaphones, banners, and even profanity, was prohibited. While some viewed these measures as necessary for community safety, others saw it as “eroding the essence of what makes football unique.” Fans felt let down by league officials, perceiving a lack of support.
Tension may have arisen from the Wanderers’ blurring of boundaries between what writer Joe Gorman once termed the “de-ethnised” A-League, the ethnic and multicultural roots of Sydney’s west, was where the Wanderers emerged.
This might also explain why the manner in which its fanbase interacts with the sport through tifos, flares, chanting and marches has faced widespread criticism from the mainstream Australian media, which may not fully understand or feel at ease with the cultures and traditions of a working-class migrant sport that differs from their own.
In the last segment of the film, the focus shifts to the team’s extraordinary journey through the Asian Champions League. Once more, they embrace their underdog status and mindset to triumph over some of the most formidable and accomplished clubs in the region.
Members of the championship-winning team reminisce about the different tactics employed by rival fans to disrupt their visits, including infiltrating their hotels to disturb players, using lasers during games, and even orchestrating a bus accident on a congested freeway on the way to a stadium.
The match that ensued became legendary in football history, now recounted by bleary-eyed Wanderers fans who congregated in a public square in Parramatta at 3am witnessing their club, which had humble origins, rise to become one of the greatest football clubs ever produced in Australia.
The greeting for the team was at least 2000 passionate, chanting fans of the Western Sydney Wanderers flooded Sydney International Airport on a Monday night at 11:20pm, transforming the arrivals area into a vibrant and noisy celebration welcoming home the newly crowned Kings of Asia at the time.
This type of football fan culture is present all around the world which is just another normal day for them, but for WSW fans to take over the Sydney airport is remarkable when you really think about and is what gives hope that football is a sleeping giant in Australia, much to the dismay of mainstream media in the country.
The other Australian sporting codes to see scenes such as those can only dream to have it for their games at the stadiums, let alone greeting their teams at the airport.
“Any future of this sport has to really consider not just things like player development and long-term strategies and diversifying and being clubs for whole communities, but also how fans are folded into that process,” Fennell said to ABC Sport.
“Because fans are engaged with a club, it’s an experience unlike anything else. To be there in the midst of some of those games felt bigger than a Taylor Swift concert, but when they go, the whole thing just deflates.
“Whatever comes next, they have to consider how active support and everyday fans are part of the process of the club, the energy of the club, because that’s the value of it. There is absolutely a link between success and fans, and if you’re not doing well, it’s clear how that diminishes.”
Despite the club’s decline in the past decade following that remarkable achievement, “Came From Nowhere” underscores the fundamental essence of success in football. It urges current decision-makers to refocus on these core principles as they endeavour to rejuvenate a competition that many feel has passed its prime.
