A BIT over two weeks ago, Kevin (is it just me or is the country being taken over by people called Kevin?) offered me the gig as FourFourTwo's third Sydney FC blogger.

When the offer was made, it's fair to say that the world was a bleaker place for Sydney fans.  The team was out of the finals. The manager was out of his mind. The club was out of touch with its fans and its city.  I, for one, was out of love with Sydney FC.

And so, many of the things that I thought I would be writing about in this blog were not pleasant.

The prospect of Sydney FC continuing as it was had me scared.  Some of the pre-game talk at the Newcastle match has been mutinous; of protests, ripped up memberships and angry emails to anyone who might read them.  Most of the talk though was of disheartened apathy.

Many members who signed in v.1 to see "new football" had renewed in following years to see Sydney FC, taking up extra memberships for kids and wives and girlfriends and for mates who usually went to the rugby or league instead.  Those kids and wives and girlfriends and mates were conspicuously absent at the last.

Most rows were half-empty and we who were there gave each other grim nods of recognition for showing up... again.   As it turned out, the game was a cracker - and a laugh.  Nevertheless, amongst the handshakes and farewells in the stands following the Newcastle game, the phrase "it'll probably just be me next year" was heard more than once.  The future looked ugly and decisions on it, thankfully deferrable. 

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As it turns out, one of John Kosmina's final acts as our manager was to chase a Sunday Telegraph journalist around a field with a stick. It was a fitting finale to his stewardship of our club; violence, slapstick and pointless stupidity in equal measure.

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I woke the dogs when I found out.    Not just mine, but the whole street's.  A clap and a leap and a shout, followed by a neighbourhood of barking and howls.  A sunny weekend and Sydney's clear, cool ocean had kept me away from two days' worth of sports pages, cable TV and the internet.  In a sunburnt Sunday afternoon reverie, I flicked over to SBS in time for Les to utter those three magic words most Sydney fans longed to hear... by mutual agreement.  

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And so a new era begins. Serious owners.  New managers.

Paul Ramsay is a man to admire.  Like Lowy, he's built a global empire out of Sydney's suburbs.  FourFourTwo puts his wealth at a cool $810 million.  Google him.  Read his company's annual reports.  Admire the fact that he chose football and Sydney FC.  And thank Lowy for the amazing things his "new football" has achieved. Hopefully we will add "great succession" to that list.

David Traktovenko is more of a mystery and everything that can easily be found out about him has already been written.  Aside from being worth half a billion in his own right, he is undoubtedly a football person of formidable standing and extensive contacts.

Their first act is a duo of UEFA pro-level coaches.  One is twice coach of the year in the Czech republic - a pedigree previously unimaginable in the A-League.  The other, a wunderkind who began his coaching career at the age of 21 as a youth coach at regional league club Aritma Prague and worked his way through the Czech leagues to manage at big clubs like Bohemians and Slovan Liberec whilst still in his 30s.

That he comes as an assistant coach should humble and redefine the expectations of many coaches in Australia.  It's a serious coaching team.

And finally, a new shirt for the new era.  One that will feel like ours and look like no-one else's...  a shirt for a club, not a franchise.  In some ways, it's the best news yet.

As Yogi Berra once observed: the future ain't what it used to be.