Producer/director Nick Piper revealed letters were sent to all the clubs last year but only the Mariners saw potential in the access-all-areas expose.

The series will air on Fox Sports next year and charts the progress of the two-time Premiers as they seek to claim the elusive Championship, giving football fans unprecedented access to the club’s inner sanctum.

The Code: Life With The Mariners is the fourth production of its kind by Onion TV which has tracked the highs and lows of rugby’s HSBC Waratahs, Queensland Reds and netball’s Adelaide Thunderbirds.

A series trailer ran pre-match on the big screen at Bluetongue Stadium on Friday night, earning the thumbs up from coach Graham Arnold.

Piper, who is in ongoing doco discussions with English Premier League outfit Queens Park Rangers, said it was no surprise the entrepreneurial Gosford outfit took to the concept and ran with it.

“We would never favour one club over the other - it was just a case of out go 10 letters and back comes one,” Piper said. “If I was knocking on the door as a Fox Sports producer maybe it would have been different.

“Remember 18 months ago when these letters went out, series one had just gone to air. This will be series four so I think there’s some momentum behind the concept.

"If I sent letters out now I think the response would be very different.”

Not for the first time the Mariners have shown vision well beyond their immediate means. Two months into the season long shoot and Piper has no doubt his lens is trained on the right club.

“The documentary is about the season as it happens and in the order that it happens,” he said. “It’s not something that we can go away and create stories – the stories are happening as we’re filming it.

“And well, put it this way, if you’re going to be telling a story, the story has to be a good one and I think their story is a great one.

“They’re under-resourced, they don’t have a huge staff, they’re in one of the smallest markets in professional sport in Australia and yet the team does very very well.

“I know the grand final has eluded them but that sets up an interesting next chapter to the story.”

But he added: “I reconciled very long ago that we should never really focus this concept on winning the grand final.

"It has to be bigger than that, it has to be more timeless than that, although that would just be the perfect ending.”

Piper is adamant he’s not making a home movie for Mariners aficionados.

At the end of the day he hopes it grips the imagination of all football supporters, as they reflect on their own clubs and experiences as fans.

Along the way they’re invited on a journey from the dressing rooms of the Mariners’ multi-million dollar Tuggerah-based centre of excellence, into team meetings and across the country as Arnold’s men go in search of more silverware.

For a two-man film crew with a rugby and AFL background, there are also discoveries about what separates the world game from other codes.

“I think the biggest difference, for me personally, is that because it’s a global game a lot of these guys have played around the world,” Piper said.

“Because it’s a non-collision sport like league and union these guys last a lot longer, so they’re a little bit older and a little bit more well-travelled and hence have led very interesting lives both in football and away from it.

“You take a guy like Patrick Zwaanswijk who’s been around the world playing the game - he’s got a raft of stories to tell. Their frame of reference is far larger and that’s been very very refreshing.”

Backed by Central Coast Tourism, the fly on the wall account of the Mariners 2012/13 campaign will air from late March through to May.