Just six months after their first game, the Wanderers have already establised a passionate fan base  - and every week  brings growing anticipation of a title tilt in their inaugural season.

Today Gorman, the former A-League and Mariners boss, talks fans, football and finding his feel-good place - and introduces us to WSW's three c’s...plus he reveals why the Wanderers is “one of the best things” he’s ever done in his life.

There are “no A-pluses in our world yet” he says, but plenty of reason for optimism as he gives his verdict on:-

MEMBERSHIPS
GORMAN: We’re sitting now at about 6300 members and they’re still selling, believe it or not. We’re selling memberships, literally today, which is quite remarkable. We’re very encouraged by that and it continues to reinforce the tremendous passion and commitment the western Sydney region has for their football club. We would have hoped to have made 5000 so we’ve well and truly exceeded expectations in year one.

FANS
You’ve seen the number of members, you’ve seen the active supporter group – extraordinary the amount of colour and noise and vibrancy. It’s just entertainment. They’ve become a part of the game day entertainment. They now sit and conduct the choir and bring in the eastern stand and the western stand with their songs and so on. Their rise to where they are today, in such a short period, has just been fascinating and they’re an invaluable part of the club’s culture and structure.

FOOTBALL
You won’t win every battle but we have this saying – you’ll never die wandering. We’ll give it our all and I think we do that week in week out. Where we sit on the ladder is very encouraging. With 10 rounds to go there’s still a lot of football to be played yet but I think we’ve certainly lived up to the promise of representing our region with pride. We didn’t set a goal of a numerical place on the ladder. What we did say is we’d be competitive and represent our fans with pride. You saw it again on the weekend against Brisbane Roar – it was the first time we’ve come back, from being down, to win a game. It just shows the character in the squad. We’ve got 11 or 12 signed for next year and we’re in discussions with the next group of players. Clearly this is a squad you do as much as you can to keep together.

COACH TONY POPOVIC
I made no secret that I was only focusing on one coach. I knew who I wanted from day one. I think he’s an outstanding professional. His preparation and attention to detail is – well, put it this way, I’ve been around sport for a long time and I’ve never seen it at this level. Every single player benefits from individual analysis and individual programs. He’s built an outstanding team of professionals around him and he’s a man who understands the benefit of teamwork. He doesn’t try to do it all on his own – with Ante Milicic (assistant) and Ron Corry (goalkeeping coach) and our general manager of football operations John Tsatsimas. They meet every day on strategy, team tactics and look at how they can do things better. They have this real thirst for excellence.

MARQUEE - ONO OVER BALLACK?
Absolutely – one of them is still playing. He's been outstanding and getting stronger every week. You wouldn’t find a more humble guy – he just fits in. There’s not an ounce of ego from a guy who has been in three World Cups. He’s starting to really come to grips now with the pace of the A-League, the summer football and the slightly harder ground than he’s used to over in Japan. But a gifted player and deservedly branded a genius in Japan.

CROWD BEHAVIOUR
(Last week the FFA played the heavy, stripping the Red and Black Bloc of their matchday rights until further notice)
The club has never apologised to the fan group or anyone else about having a zero tolerance for anti-social behaviour. We had 16,357 fans at a game and there were about 10 or 15 who chose to do some anti-social things – throw some plastic bottles and let off a flare and so on. We have zero tolerance for that, and the largest percentage of our fan group and active supporter group don’t want that behaviour either. So we’re working with them to try and help them with self-regulation to try and take more control of their own destiny. We really want to do that in a positive environment. There will be some fans unfortunately who will be issued with some banning notices shortly. Some have been issued with banning notices which will prevent them from entering any stadium in Australia for one to five years. We’ve got to work and support the majority of the group to weed out this minority who would seek to do those anti-social things and that’s the spirit of collaboration we have with the leadership group. They don’t want it, we don’t want it and we’ll work as quickly as possible to get it out of there.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
I wouldn’t think there are too many clubs in any sport in the country who deliver on the community activities we do. In two months alone we did 55 community visits that touched over 100,000 kids. Our commitment was that this club would be powered by the community, built by the community and would become a community-focused club. And all levels, whether it’s our grassroots football partner associations, our schools, the many premier league clubs or charities, that’s where our focus is. We use the three ‘c’ words a lot which is – community, collaboration and connectivity. We’ll launch the next innovation of our community program in the next couple of weeks.

FACILITIES
Out here at Blacktown International Sports Park we’ve got training and administration together which I think is compelling because you don’t build a team, you build a club and we’re all here together. All our management and support staff are in the same building as our football coaching department staff, our sports science staff, our medical team. We’ve got good gym facilities and rehab facilities here. We’ve got the option of four or five training fields to make sure we always have a quality surface. 

LONG-TERM VIABILITY
We haven’t gone there yet – we’re only six months young. The aim is to build the club and get the building blocks and the foundations strong. And when they’re strong and I suppose, in inverted commas, bullet-proof, you could transition it into an external ownership and feel comfortable that the club’s culture and brand was protected. That would be the time to have those discussions but we’re a way off getting those foundations to the level we want to get them to. No one’s set a cap on it. You’d be looking in a window of zero to three years, that sort of time-frame just to ensure that this club and what it stands for, its culture and framework, is strong and robust before transferring to a new ownership model. Now whether that’s a community ownership model or private equity or a combination of both of those things is up for discussion.

FUTURE GOALS
We’re always looking at ways to tweak the club and take it to new levels. We want to set up a benchmark football club here. We want to set up a world class football club, one that’s the pride of Western Sydney. We’re in the process now of trying to move out of ‘do’ mode into strategic mode. We’re building the next phase of our business plan in a far more strategic way rather than rushed and reactive as we’ve had to be in some cases in the last six months.

FEEL GOOD VIBE
I’ve got to say – I walk in here and it just feels good. I think this is probably, if not the best, certainly up there with the absolute best group of people I’ve ever had the privilege to work with. With our youth league, women’s league, coaches, staff, players there’s 93 of us and it’s just a feel-good place. It really is exciting. The reaction of the western Sydney region to us, at all levels, whether it’s been government, corporate or football family, our fans, our members – it’s just so rewarding and for me it’s up there with some of the best things I’ve ever done in my life.