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Opinion

Will the Wanderers' bandwagon fans return now their team is winning?

21st October, 2022
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21st October, 2022
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The Western Sydney Wanderers have won two matches on the trot to begin the 2022-23 season, the team looks in good shape, the effort levels appear high and the full potential of the squad under Marko Rudan excitedly unknown at this early stage.

Yet when the team runs onto the playing surface at CommBank Stadium this afternoon to do battle with the seriously in strife Brisbane Roar, the answer to a two-fold question many fans of the league have pondered for some time may well be finally answered.

That double-barrelled question being: just how many people actual support Western Sydney, and to where have all the folk who once sang, stomped and intimidated disappeared?

It has been a long time between drinks for the Wanderers, with zero representation in the finals across the last five seasons and a winning percentage of just under 30 per cent over the same period.

For an organisation that began, arguably, with the most significant achievement ever by any Australian club in its winning of the 2013-14 Asian Champions League, in addition to three grand final appearances in the domestic competition, what has followed could be described as nothing less than embarrassing for a club that the average punter feared was about to become the most powerful in the land.

Tomislav Uskok of Macarthur celebrates scoring a goal during the A-League Mens match between Western Sydney Wanderers and Macarthur FC at CommBank Stadium, on December 11,

Tomislav Uskok of Macarthur celebrates scoring a goal against Western Sydney Wanderers (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Crowds were massive in the golden years, with the old Pirtek Stadium heaving with passion and the scrap for memberships indicative of the desperation of fans to secure a seat to what was then, one of the hottest tickets in town.

Across the Wanderers’ opening five seasons, a rough average of around 14,000 people attended home-and-away fixtures in Parramatta. Then, the wheels were to fall off.

After Tony Popovic quit his role as coach just a week prior to the 2017-18 domestic season, the performances of the team seemed likely and proved to be, in decline. That season was the beginning of the end of a honeymoon period that only true and hardened supporters would ride out across the long term.

Sadly, a significant portion of the folk who were along for the initial ride have proven to be nothing but fly-by-nights and after subsequent years of tension brought on by a series of incidents that the game could do without, been nowhere to be seen over the last six seasons, as the Wanderers have battled to maintain respectability and dignity, despite a continuing losing record.

From the outside, there always appeared to be an element of the Wanderers’ supporter base that was destined to implode.

When weapons such as hammers were confiscated at games, tifos featuring opposition coaches engaging in oral sex were unfurled at matches and a consistent aggressive tone pervading whenever the now-deceased RBB was in the house, logic suggested that the entire exercise was more fashionable and self-centred, rather than sustainable.

That was my thought from the very early days of the Western Sydney Wanderers and the fans in red and black that drew most attention struck me as being far more interested in hoisting middle fingers towards cameras and making the entire contest about themselves, rather than supporting a football team through thick or thin.

That view has, sadly, proven to be somewhat accurate, with pre-pandemic home crowd numbers slumping to just above 9000.

Wanderers fans

The RBB in better times (Photo by Speed Media/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

After an off-season recruitment drive that saw Australian players Lawrence Thomas, Calem Nieuwenhof, Gabriel Cleur, Oliver Bozanic, Kusini Yengi and Sydney FC legend Milos Ninkovic join the Rudan stable, along with internationals Sulejman Krpic, Marcelo and Romain Amalfitano, I wrote openly about how Western Sydney had finally assembled a team to reckon with.

“The squad now looks to have the toughness, resilience and Rudan-like uncompromising attitude to at least compete seriously for a finals spot in 2022/23. For once, this looks like a Wanderers’ team that will stay the course and be there for the long haul, unlike the flaky fans who have ditched the club over the last six years.”

In the opening round against Perth on what was a lovely and dry afternoon for football, the Wanderers drew 8984 fans, despite the new blood, brilliant weather and one of the best A-League stadiums in the land.

Subsequently, Rudan’s men travelled south to AAMI Park and did the business against the Victory, supporting what I and others had seen in the new look squad.

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Round 3 sees the red and black back at home against the horribly out of form Brisbane Roar and a chance for the fans to flock to CommBank in numbers in the Saturday twilight.

If they do and 13,000-plus results, all will be forgiven and credit will be given where credit is due. However, if the missing fans don’t show, it will prove once and for all that the beating heart of the Western Sydney Wanderers lies far from the controversial, gate-crashing, band-wagon jumpers that defined the club’s supporter base in its early years.

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