Came From Nowhere premieres 7.30pm Sunday 26 May on SBS and SBS On Demand.
Premiering 7.30pm Sunday 26 May on SBS and SBS on Demand, feature-length documentary, Came From Nowhere, sees Walkley award-winning journalist Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole, The Mission, The Kingdom, Mastermind) chart the incredible rise of the A-League’s Western Sydney Wanderers who in two short years went from having no players to winning the AFC Asian Cup – the highest championship an Australian club can win in global football.
Ahead of the tenth anniversary season of the Western Sydney Wanderers historic victory, Fennell looks back at the club’s origins and how western Sydney, the heartland of Australian football, finally got its team seven years after the A-League launched.
Fennell explores how the Wanderers passionate and sometimes contentious fans quickly drew the ire of shock-jocks, politicians and the police, delving into the subsequent culture war that erupted between western Sydney football supporters and critics. Violent hooligans or impassioned football fans? Came From Nowhere lays bare the deep divisions between Australia’s rich and poor and also shows the power of football in shaping a community’s sense of identity. This is a story that goes to the heart of multiculturalism in Australia and the uncomfortable tension that lies between celebrating our diverse communities and deriding them when they don’t conform.
Along the way viewers will meet a range of key players who were on the scene for the rise of the Western Sydney Wanderers, including former team members Ante Covic, Mark Bridge, Nikolai Topor-Stanley and Shannon Cole; superfans such as former Australian Idol judge Ian “Dicko” Dickson; former Socceroos captain, seasoned broadcaster, and 2022 FIFA World Cup SBS commentator Craig Foster; and Western Sydney Wanderers CEO (2014-2022) John Tsatsimas.
Presenter and Producer Marc Fennell said, “I was comfortably the worst left-back in the history of Year 8 soccer at my high school, so trust me, you’re not watching this for my football expertise.”
“When we first started looking at the origin of the Wanderers, I was shocked, if I’m being perfectly honest, that it hadn’t already been made into a Hollywood blockbuster years ago. This ragtag club went from having no name, no players, and no facilities to ultimately winning the highest championship in the region against teams backed by billionaires and royalty. It is the stuff of pure fairytales.”
“Came From Nowhere is about who we choose to mythologize and who gets left out of that story. It’s about a community drawn from all around the globe trying to build something new here in Australia, only to find that what they brought was not always welcome. But once upon a time in the western suburbs of Sydney, they created something together that has never been seen before nor likely to be repeated. It’s a rollercoaster, but it needs to be seen to be believed.”
Came From Nowhere provides a compelling look at a defining moment in the history of Australian football and helps contextualise the nation’s complicated relationship with the sport. In the spirit of the rise of the Matildas and soccer’s growing popularity in 2024, the story of the Western Sydney Wanderers deserves to be celebrated as a Hollywood-style tale of an underdog team who united the fan base of a sleeping giant and claimed the ultimate prize.
Came From Nowhere will be subtitled in five languages, streaming on SBS On Demand in Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean. Came From Nowhere premieres 7.30pm Sunday 26 May on SBS and SBS On Demand.
