Jack Cameron sits in the coach’s office watching game tapes. He can name every GIANTS player in order of their numbers. He can impersonate the goal celebrations of Jeremy Cameron, Lachie Whitfield and his favourite player, Jon Patton. He’s even learning to kick on his opposite foot.

Jack Cameron is three years-old. The youngest son of Head Coach Leon Cameron, he and his older siblings, Amelia, 10 and Harry, 8 are as much a part of the club as the GIANTS stars they idolise.

They wander the corridors of the GIANTS’ Learning Life Centre at Sydney Olympic Park with their mum, Caz a couple of times a week. Someone - usually coaches Chad Cornes, Al McConnell or CEO David Matthews - is always around to kick a football with them.

It’s an open-door policy at the GIANTS. The players’ parents, siblings and partners are regularly spotted at the club, either watching games and training or mingling in the club’s cafe.

“It’s like having one big massive family,” says Leon Cameron who joined the GIANTS at the end of 2012.

“We spend time together at work, we spend time together at the footy, we spend time together away from work and that’s why I think it’s such a tight-knit group.

“Normally in life when someone or something has done it hard, the tighter you become. We’ve done it hard - it’s tough, it’s new, it’s exciting - we hit a road block, we get up, we go again. It’s not just the players and the staff, the families live it as well and the fans live it. I think it’s all part of the journey.”

Leon Cameron’a AFL journey began as an 18-year-old back in 1990 when he played the first of 256 games for the Western Bulldogs and then Richmond. He then did a decade-long coaching apprenticeship as an assistant at the Bulldogs, Hawthorn and the GIANTS under Kevin Sheedy before taking over the senior job last year.

“They (my kids) come into our footy club and spend time here a lot and they love that, they love being involved and it makes my job easier when they’re here. Caz has got a really good rapport with the staff and I think she enjoys that as well. But it’s a demanding role and that’s just the way it is.

“Caz has been really good and the kids understand. I try not to take my work home, or when I do go home work shuts out until the kids are asleep.”

The players’ families are also an integral part of the club. Many of them travel the length and breadth of the country following their sons’ and the club’s fortunes.

Families such as the Kennedys, who have been at every single one of Adam’s 54 games, and the Tomlinsons who organise regular get togethers for the Melbourne based families.

“The parents have had to release their kids to come up to Sydney,” says Cameron. “The parents have been on the journey as well and you can see them, they’re starting to come along to the footy with this zest of ‘Oh we’re a chance today’.

“History is fantastic. I’ve been at some great clubs in Hawthorn and the Bulldogs and history will always be there. But part of the reason why we came to this footy club is that we get a chance to actually start history.

“In 50 years’ time when someone’s sitting in my chair they’re going to look back and say, ‘How did the history start at this footy club, what’s the foundations and why is it rock solid?’”

Leon Cameron isn’t just coaching a team. He’s also helping to build a club in one of the most competitive sporting markets in the country. It’s a responsibility he takes seriously.

“It’s not just about the weights and training and footy drills and game plans,” he says.

“We want to build a massive membership fan base, build a quality product that makes people want to wake up, jump in their car and drive to Spotless Stadium or drive to our home ground in Canberra, to fly interstate and watch the product that we deliver week-in week-out.

“But I’m just as proud of where we’re heading off the field as we are on the field. We are a community club. That’s big for me.

“We want to turn this into a powerful club, we want to turn this into a club that people from the west, people from Canberra, they are proud to work into work every Monday and tell all their friends, ‘I follow the GIANTS and I get great entertainment and I get great people’.”

For the first time in the club’s short history, the players came back from their off-season break to a permanent home. And the club’s state of the art Learning Life Centre at Sydney Olympic Park is starting to feel like a home too.

There’s the team photo taken after the club’s first ever win against the Gold Coast Suns in Canberra in 2012 in reception. A panoramic image of Spotless Stadium taken during the first win against the Swans adorns the wall of the meeting room.

The walls of the players’ area are dotted with GIANT moments; 50 images of the key moments on and off-field since 2011.

“It’s about knowing where the players have come from and what they’ve built in just three short years. And where they are going,” says Cameron.

“They come into their fourth pre-season realising what it takes to actually compete against the other sides. They’ve got that steely look that they don’t want to be down the bottom any more. They want to win more games and it’s infectious.

“They have to believe that we belong and I think we do. We belong in the AFL. Not only do we belong but we can turn some heads. If people believe that strongly enough then they’ll make things happen.”

This article was first published in the Official 2015 Yearbook of the Greater Western Sydney GIANTS - Pick up a copy of the GIANTS' Yearbook for just $10 at the next home game or click here to purchase a digital copy now.