Perth Glory fans' approval of the appointment of Alistair Edwards was always going to be a sure bet. The 44 year old former striker grew up in the southern suburbs, played for Western Australia's youth sides, and appeared in over 90 games for Glory in the NSL. Unlike past Glory coaches, his background and personality ensures that he appreciates the club's rich history as a personal experience, rather than a pre-prepared media soundbite. In 2006, he was interviewed by footballwa.net as part of their coverage of Glory's 10th anniversary - and while he played on the opposition side for Glory's inaugural match, he remembered the atmosphere of nearly 10,000 fans like it was yesterday:

"It was a massive buzz... You could sense it was the dawning of a new era. But it was bittersweet for me."

As an added bonus for Glory fans, Glory youth coach (and lately Edwards' assistant) Gareth Naven also remembers those good old days:

Naven said the old East Perth ground, complete with weathered wooden benches, helped generate a match-day experience unlike anything else in the country. "There was a makeshift Shed, and old bench seats around the ground," he said. "The fans were right there; they could see you sweat and hear you swear. That's what made the atmosphere."

More recently, Edwards has continued to push the case for more pride in the Glory shirt, stating in an interview with Sportal:

"There is so much potential with this club... It's great to hear all the good things people are saying about Western Sydney Wanderers, but we are the benchmark club in the competition, we always have been. The A-League modelled everything on what Glory used to be when it started up."

Now I mean no offence to past coaches like Mitchell, Smith, Ferguson, and McMahon - but they simply didn't understand this. They couldn't have understood this - not in the way that a past player, coach, or everyday Glory fan could. It's things like this - and showing the squad tapes of past Glory sides - that Edwards brings to the club that none of Perth's past A-League coaches has. His appointment generates genuine excitement and hope amongst the fanbase; not just because he's willing to focus on young, WA players - but also because his appointment signals that there might be a link once more between Glory's somewhat mediocre present and their much, much brighter past.

Edwards’ past aside, there are other reasons to like the man. He is clearly knowledgeable about the game – easily holding his own with pundits on SBS and Fox when asked the hard questions. He sees his role as far more than just a coach who turns up for training and match days and then goes home – he wants to be an ambassador, a teacher, a role model – all whilst remaining a student of the game himself. Above all else though, Alistair is just so damn likeable. Very few opposition fans have a bad word for him; he says everything that Glory fans have wanted to hear for the past decade; and the guy always seems to have a smile and a handshake for waiting media or fans (he’s also known to have stood in the shed for a few games, too). Now while I feel Ian Ferguson should be admired for the way he handled a lot of pressure and a fair amount of vitriol with dignity in the most part, and Ron Smith was a nice enough bloke if not a bit out of his depth at the time, neither can claim to be as warm and engaging for local fans as Edwards. As for comparisons with Steve McMahon – the less said the better!

For owner Tony Sage and his administration, Edwards' appointment after what was supposed to be a "worldwide search" might be a sure bet for fan popularity, and fit his model of low-cost operations and appointments at the club, but it may also represent the last roll of the dice for an owner whose commitment to the club has been prone to wax and wane (at least vocally) in times of pressure or controversy. During the latter days of Ian Ferguson's reign, there were conversations happening about the club holding another fan forum, at which it would discuss the possibility of pursuing a more local, youthful based approach to football in future - conversations that were met by swift condemnation of those parts of the fan base who had been told exactly the same thing would be happening two years prior. Why should they trust yet another talk by the club when past promises along the same lines had not been delivered upon?

Evidently, this hadn't gone unnoticed by Edwards, either. He's actually been critical of his current employers - winning over even more of the Glory fanbase with his blunt assessment of the board's effectiveness when it came to implementing their own grand plan:

"Part of my role in coming here was not only the on-field stuff, but the off-field stuff as well.  It was to sit down with the club and look at the types of things that need to be done moving forward to bring the club more sustainable success. I've looked at the plan that has been with the club since 2011, but there's no point having a plan if it just sits in a cupboard and gathers dust... If you look at the plan and look what's happened, it's like the complete opposite. I'm a coach, not a cleaner. I'm not here to clean some dust off a cupboard."

Here lies the challenge for Perth Glory's owner and board, then - you finally have a coach who inspires the fanbase, speaks to everything the club stood for in its halcyon days, and provides a way back in for those fans who have abandoned the club as it drifted in a directionless state through its A-League existence. Now, are you going to give this man the control and the resources required to build a lasting legacy for WA football? Will the chairman step back into the shadows, stay out of the papers, and let the club's football and philosophy do the talking? Or will we see another year of circus tricks, media squabbles, and cheap shots that some of the more 'softly, softly, positive, positive' parts of the Australian football media over east do their best to ignore, preferring to focus on nicer stories in the west of Sydney?

Because when you look at it, in the grand scheme of things, Glory fans know that their club hasn't fared well in the A-League. In fact, it's fared dreadfully - through a combination of poor coaching, bad player management, and poor administration from a number of owners and boards. To those who have read the preceding sentences and felt their back arch up; I can only point you to comments made by our new coach, both in the quotes above and the following snippet from the day of his appointment:

"There's no point in us finishing in the bottom four for three years and suddenly we reach a Grand Final and the next year we're back down the bottom again."

Fleeting highs - no matter how fun the run to Brisbane was - may please headlines and create a cheap attendance boost for your opening rounds; but as the club has found out to its own detriment it is never an indicator of continual growth, stability, or success. It is high time that Perth Glory stopped promoting opposition players like Rojas, Del Piero, or Heskey as the reason to come to a game in Perth, but instead recreated the original magic of the NSL days, uniting the state's football tribes and putting WA's best on show to the rest of the country.

It may sound cheap, it may sound nostalgic - but that was the reason for this club to exist in the first place, and spawn everything that came after. Back then you didn't need to beg for a small piece in the news - you were the news. While these days may never fully be recaptured, due to the way the A-League and modern sport and stadia are run, there's no reason why Glory can't at least be on par with the way Western Sydney have performed on and off the field. Edwards is right - credit to Wanderers for all they have achieved, but for many of us out west those feelings and accomplishments are old news.

To have a coach who understands that, and is willing to force the club to back local youth – not just let them sit in the stadium and watch the game, and call that ‘development’ – is a massive boon for Perth Glory. Through the club, Ian Ferguson used to trot out well-spun lines like “In terms of West Australian players we currently have 9 in our squad and 8 are aged 22 or under” but as Edwards well knows, if those players aren’t getting game time or have to go to Central Coast or Melbourne Victory to make a name for themselves, it’s of very little use to WA football. Edwards, along with his assistant Gareth Naven, have a vested interest in getting Western Australia to the top of the pile; his own sons bypassed Perth Glory and went overseas – something he hasn’t let happen with Everton target Daniel De Silva, a 15 year old attacking midfielder whom he signed (and played) within 2 weeks of replacing Ferguson.

When questions were raised about De Silva’s age, Edwards simply said that if the kid was good enough, he was old enough – and he felt comfortable in saying he was good enough for the A-League, given the time he’d spent coaching him for the Joeys. Fast forward to last night’s game against Adelaide, and if De Silva’s late-game header had only been slightly more directed, 16,000-plus people would have lifted the roof off the new eastern stand at nib; Edwards himself was already out of his chair and about to celebrate. One can only hope that Sage and the board noticed the reaction WA football fans had to this moment, and had a sudden realisation about where they may have been going wrong in the past few years.

It's clear then that Edwards' appointment is a welcome change from the past decisions made by the club - finally, an end to the days of promoting an assistant because he seems a nice bloke and it's a nice cheap option for the board. Every Glory fan around Australia will be hoping for success under Alistair - even if it doesn't come right away - along with an improved showing from the people running the club when it comes to delivering on their commitment to WA football. Because at the end of the day, if this doesn't work out, one must wonder just what options the club's current administration would have left in the bank. Giving a three year contract to a coach that was loaned to you from the FFA might be seen as a bit of a gamble in some quarters, but fans are confident that they finally have a local man who knows what Perth Glory truly is – and in that sense, it’s really the only gamble worth taking.