The dark side of Australian football’s ‘great sporting fairytale’

Against a sea of red and black flags, an angry throng punches the air and chants, “Go f--- yourself!” as police look on. These are scenes not from a protest, but from the march of the Red and Black Bloc (RBB), the fans of Western Sydney Wanderers FC, in Parramatta earlier this year.

The rapid rise of the A-League soccer club, who in 2014 became the only Australian side to win the AFC Asian Champions League, is the subject of SBS documentary Came from Nowhere.

Craig Foster appears in the SBS documentary Came from Nowhere, about the rise of the Western Sydney Wanderers football club.

Socceroo turned broadcaster Craig Foster has a theory about why the film, in which he appears, is screening now. “The club is facing great challenges, as is the game itself, in terms of financial sustainability,” says Foster.

“That may be why this documentary is well-timed because it gives fans an opportunity to look back on what was possible, and continue to dream that the game can one day be representative of the passion of the people that follow it.”

That passion attracted negative press for the Wanderers from the start. Last month, a supporter received a two-year ban from Football Australia for allegedly performing the Nazi salute at the Sydney derby. But while Foster opposes antisocial behaviour, he believes an overreaction by police, media and game authorities, has dampened enthusiasm.

“The fans felt let down by the game,” he says. “In Europe, thousands of people stand together and sing and joke and experience the game in that way, and as football people, we love that. At Western Sydney Wanderers, they wanted to bring back football culture in Australia … when tens of thousands of Wanderers fans started to walk to games in groups, some people were challenged because they’d never seen it, and so they equated that with danger and fear. I think there are lingering impacts of that across the game.”

Western Sydney Wanderers fans put on a passionate display. Credit: Eric Berry

The documentary hears from players, journalists, police and fans, including retired high school principal Judith O’Brien, Chilean Australian Pia Herrera, a “la banda” drummer, Iraqi-Assyrian refugee Tatiyana Shaba and former Croatian professional footballer Harry Karl, who received a (since overturned) lifetime ban.

Wanderers ambassador Ian “Dicko” Dickson, who also appears, grew up in the UK barracking for Birmingham City (despite being named after his grandfather who played for rival team Aston Villa). The former Australian Idol judge was shocked when he first heard the racist Australian slur for soccer.

“It seems to be a blind spot that Australians have always had for this game,” says Dickson. “When I arrived in Australia in 2001, it was dismissed as an ethnic pastime … When the [Wanderers] started in 2012, I was on talk radio in Sydney, and there were people clutching their pearls, saying the hordes were at the gates, and it was the end of civilisation. I don’t mean to be an apologist for toxic male aggression. I think violence has no place in sport, regardless of the code, but there is a robust, partisan, noisy nature of the football fan Australians have always struggled to get their heads around.”

The club’s founding executive chairman, businessman Lyall Gorman, told Dickson he hoped the Wanderers would “unite the west”.

“It did go some way towards reaching across ethnic divides in Western Sydney,” says Dickson. “It was like the United Colours of Benetton, the RBB. If you don’t speak English as a first language, you can put on a Wanderers shirt and belong.”

As a refugee advocate, Foster agrees the game has the capacity to affect social change, and perhaps no more so than the Wanderers.

“Western Sydney is a cultural melting pot that represents the true demography of Australia,” he says. “And this is the all-time great sporting fairytale. The increasing acceptance of football corresponds with the increasing acceptance of multiculturalism. The [success of] the Matildas and the Socceroos, and the rise of the professional game in Australia, closely mirrors Australia’s acceptance and love for our multiculturalism.”

Came From Nowhere airs on SBS on Sunday, May 26, at 7.30pm.

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