Blacktown City U20

St George are the fixture the players at Blacktown mark first. The two sides have been calling each other arch-rivals for long enough that the label has stopped needing explanation, and the same afternoon in the calendar brings out the sharper edges of the New South Wales league: Rockdale Ilinden, Sydney Olympic, Marconi Stallions, APIA Leichhardt. These are clubs built from migrant communities across greater Sydney, and the fixtures between them carry a history that predates the current league structure by decades. For the Under-20s, who play the earlier kick-off on the same ground before the first grade side, those afternoons are the first taste of what the senior game demands.

The club they feed did not begin as Blacktown at all. It started in 1953 as Toongabbie Soccer Club, in the western suburbs where the city was still expanding outwards, and took the Blacktown City name in 1979. The Demons nickname stuck. So did royal blue and white — a match programme from 1981 lists blue shirts, white shorts, white socks, and the colours have outlasted most of the league's other constants.

Silverware has come in reasonable quantity: the club counts 8 senior men's premierships and 7 championships. The championship in 2016 mattered more than the tally suggests, because it came after a long stretch in which Blacktown had been near the top without finishing there. The premiership followed in 2017.

The ground has gone by more names than the club has. Landen Stadium is the current one, though people around Blacktown have also known it as Lily Homes Stadium, Gabbie Stadium, Fairfax Community Stadium and the Blacktown City Sports Centre. It holds 7,500, which is more than the U20 fixtures ever need, and the empty terraces on a weekday evening make the noise from the far side carry a long way.