Waiting for Glory years Perth Glory owner Tony Sage. Perth Glory is not quite an A-League byword for dysfunctionality: after all, the club has never gone bust and folded, unlike those ultimate dysfunctional entities Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury. But it has earned for itself an unenviable reputation as a club where strange things happen, odd decisions are made and instability seems to be the default setting, even though it has a cashed-up owner in Tony Sage who appears to be passionately committed to the club and no rival who can tug at supporters' affections within thousands of kilometres. Glory should be an A-League powerhouse. Fervent local support and what should be a significant home-ground advantage - for eastern states teams the equivalent of travelling to Nib Stadium for a league game is a little like Arsenal flying to Moscow for a Sunday afternoon clash - ought to make the West Australians almost unbeatable at home, especially in a competition where no team can spend up big to stockpile its squad with star players. They were in the old days of the NSL, when players of rival teams looked forward to games against the Glory as they knew they would play in front of big crowds generating the sort of atmospheres that they had more usually seen only on television. Glory was always a title contender, with then owner Nick Tana happy to open his wallet and splurge on the best players in the competition to ensure they were among the front-runners. In a salary-capped league, success cannot be bought, and Glory has come back to the field. But those inherent advantages of distance and local support still exist, so the question has to be asked: Why are the men from the west among the A-League's biggest underachievers? Is it because the players are not up to it, or because the flipside to its home advantage, the lengthy travel to away games, wears them down? Or is it because a revolving door of coaches and administrators has prevented the development of a proper club culture and a sense of continuity, usually a key feature of successful clubs. The A-League is in its ninth season and Glory is one of only two of the seven original clubs still in existence not to have won a championship (the other is Adelaide). Having sacked Alistair Edwards less than halfway through this season, Sage will be appointing Glory's seventh coach in nine campaigns. David Mitchell, the former Socceroo striker, is the longest serving, and his period in charge took in some two-and-a-half seasons - half the time that the man who can still claim to be the A-League's most successful coach, Ernie Merrick, was in the driving seat at Melbourne Victory, where he won two championships and lost a third grand final. Glory has also had a number of administrators and executives who have come and gone, which cannot make things easier. Results, of course, drive everything and no coach can expect to survive if results are poor: even though there is no relegation and thus no ultimate penalty for failure, the A-League is not some development competition where performances and outcomes don't matter. Until Ian Ferguson and Stuart Munro took charge early in the 2010-11 season, Glory never looked likely to trouble the post-season finals scorers much. But the duo took Perth to the grand final in 2011-12, losing at Suncorp Stadium to a late Brisbane winner. Yet within nine months the pair was sacked as the team floundered, and Edwards was brought in. A local, he was ostensibly hired to drive a youth policy and make Glory the club where all talented West Australian youngsters wanted to go. After only 10 games he is gone, having lost a power struggle with his senior players and been accused of favouring his two sons, whom he brought to the club. That duo, Cameron and Ryan Edwards, are now in an unenviable position, not unlike Glory itself. It may be a captive marketplace, but if the natives get restless, who could blame them?