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It's time for the Wanderers to live up to their name

Roar Pro
14th April, 2014
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The RBB has been handed an ultimatum from Wanderers management. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
Roar Pro
14th April, 2014
44
1381 Reads

The success of the Western Sydney Wanderers as a sporting franchise has been pretty astonishing over the past couple of years.

The circumstances fell into place so well, with the Wanderers slipping into an environment which had missed major sporting success in recent years.

The emergence and prominence of the RBB and “active support” at games was a major attraction to those who’d never considered the A-League before.

The fairytale ran through the whole season with the side becoming regular-season champions and going one win away from taking the double in their debut year.

The change in atmosphere around Parramatta was palpable, Peter Wynn’s started promoting Wanderers gear alongside their usual NRL gear outside the shop. Almost every shop along Church street had a red and black banner declaring their allegiance to the Wanderers.

It was the biggest shift of the local public consciousness towards football since 2006 and it reminded me a lot of the massive run Parramatta made in the finals in 2009.

However Western Sydney doesn’t just consist of Parramatta and what has puzzled me is the Wanderer’s real lack of enterprise to stretch out and really try and engage the people they are trying to represent.

For a team donned the “Wanderers”, despite their ability to travel in their thousands into the city, Gosford, Newcastle and sometimes even interstate, they really haven’t wandered much around Western Sydney. They went to Campbelltown once in their first year, and made a couple visits around the suburbs in their trial games.

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And while several Wanderers fans travel from all parts of Western Sydney, the effect of the Wanderers on communities outside Parramatta were much less profound. Wanderers jerseys could occasionally be found on fans, but the amount of red and black generally on display was far away from the benchmark set by Parramatta.

Many Wanderers fans believe that games should remain at Parramatta but, in my view, this will only lead to their detriment and limit their potential.

If they were the Parramatta Wanderers they could rely on the local connection to sustain themselves, but taking on the mantle of representing Western Sydney means that they have lost at least a bit of that local connection.

The locals lose that sense of responsibility over the team if they don’t draw crowds. They fall into the crowd of the myriad of other teams which also claim to represent Western Sydney.

But to make up for this loss of responsibility, the team can represent a larger area of fans and has the potential to become a much bigger club. But only if that club is able to own the areas it claims to represent.

The whirlwind success of the Wanderers can only last so long, eventually they won’t have the current mystique and appeal that they currently possess. Eventually their chants will age, and their results will taper, and by this time the Wanderers will need to consolidate their fan-base.

Now is the time for the Wanderers to capitalise on their appeal and expand their fan-base. Otherwise they risk constricting their future growth and boxing themselves into only playing out of, and being relevant in, Parramatta.

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