If you have not yet had the opportunity to watch SBS’s recent release, Came from Nowhere; a stunning piece of filmmaking that focuses on the birth and early success of the Western Sydney Wanderers, you will be mighty pleased when you eventually do.

In what is an emotional, at times charming and mostly inspiring piece of television, the story of the first and still only Australian team to conquer Asia is told through the eyes of the people behind the club.

Those people lie at the heart of the Wanderer’s story; the fans, the players, the coach and the people organising what was a new A-League club in 2012, with just 186 days remaining until the start of a season that would begin in October of that year.

Against the political backdrop of the demise of Gold Coast United and the desperate need to replenish a competition briskly, with corporate dissatisfaction looming otherwise, Western Sydney became the obvious location with Tony Popovic a wisely chosen coach.

Came from Nowhere delves expertly into the early fan forums, the involvement of people like Craig Foster and Mark Bosnich, as well as the foundation members that banged the first drums and built a fan culture unseen previously in Australian football.

Described in the program as something “half-way between violent revolution and mardi gras”, the story is one we know, but also one worth re-telling considering the clubs’ recent lack of success and the fractured support that has now half-emptied the stands; mirroring the team’s failures on the pitch.

Former CEO of Western Sydney John Tsatsimas summed up what was a stunning rise for a club built on the dreams of people from a less affluent region of Sydney, “We are the f–k you club”, and the original fans wanted it no other way.

Yet that early spirit was to erode. Some fans of the club will naively suggest that over-zealous policing was the fundamental reason, whilst Wanderers’ haters might point directly to balaclava-wearing youths intimidating fans of other clubs and causing extensive damage to stadium facilities on game day.

The truth behind the Wanderers and the fall from what they once were and threatened to become, probably lies somewhere in between those two divergent opinions.

After looking likely to change football in Australia forever, Western Sydney Wanderers has since become something of an A-League player, rarely threatening during the finals and now drawing a comparatively paltry 10,000 fans per home match at CommBank Stadium.

In only their second season of existence, over 16,000 memberships had been sold, doubling the 8,000 in their inaugural campaign and the slide to A-League mediocrity has had many a signpost and incident along the way.

Violent clashes with police, hammers brought into stadiums, an inability to ignore trash journalism that painted them as violent thugs and a small group of idiots that ruined things for the majority, all played roles in building the poor reputation that innocent Wanderers fans were forced to endure.

After three runner-up appearances in A-League grand finals across the club’s first four seasons, and a stunning win in the Asian Champion’s League that defied logic and all common sense, Tony Popovic’s departure in October 2017 triggered a period of decline from which the club has not bottomed out.

Just one finals appearance across the last six A-League seasons, a string of failed and sacked coaches and a supporter group seemingly taking its competitive frustration out on authorities instead of demanding the playing group do better, has the Wanderers in no better place entering 2024/25 than it has been in recent years.

SBS’s production focuses heavily on the good people of Western Sydney who provided the foundations of the club; a delightful woman who provided lozenges for the throats of the active supporter group, presenter Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson and members of the RBB with bloodlines from all over the globe that so wanted a team to support, in what can be a frustrating footballing landscape in Australia.

Their memories of the glory days are vivid and well told in the documentary, yet so much of it is all about them, the songs, the clashes with police and their conviction that Western Sydney fans were targeted, bullied and poorly represented by the powers at be.

One could argue that a club founded in a heartbeat and suddenly achieving incredible success may have actually lured in a group of people that the Wanderers could well have done without.

Yet that does not explain the mediocrity we have seen on the field and the administrative and coaching arms of the club need to be held to account for failures in that area.

It is a wonderful watch for football fans, yet one that also leaves a neutral wondering how such a force could have gotten things all so wrong in such a short space of time.

Western Sydney did indeed come from nowhere and have ended up back there just 12 years into their existence. Perhaps being built on nothing but a dream lies at the core of their issues.