In surveys and meetings, fans chose the club's name, badge and colours. The team was named after the Wanderers, participants in a significant match against the King's School at Parramatta in 1880, enabling the new Wanderers to call themselves ''Australia's newest oldest club''.

Loyalty soon became a two-way street. If it is amazing that the club will have close to 40,000 supporters at Allianz Stadium on Sunday, after a season in which they won the minor premiership, it is no more so than the fact that 3000 of them turned out, complete with colours and songs, for the first trial match at Cook Park in St Marys against the Nepean club just nine months ago.

Gorman believes the key to winning such rapid support was ''not to be knights on a white horse riding in and saying we were bringing the people a new football club. We are standing on the shoulders of our pioneers: the Premier League clubs, the member associations, the community grassroots of football.

''There are 186 languages spoken in western Sydney, and football is in the people's blood. We built this club around them, not ourselves.''

Last June, that message of community inclusion was sent out in the most meaningful way. The club's first three signings were local players: Aaron Mooy, who grew up in Blacktown before refining his skills in England and Scotland; Tarek Elrich, from Auburn and the Parramatta Eagles via the Newcastle Jets; and Kwabena Appiah-Kubi, who attended Parramatta Marist Brothers and learnt his football in the Granville Association, returning after a stint with the Mariners. All three will be lining up in Sunday's match. Harry Kewell, Brett Emerton, Mark Schwarzer and Tim Cahill came from western Sydney, but the club's football success can be measured by the fact that they have not needed them.