Some football stories begin with a final siren. Some begin with a famous win, a packed stadium, or a player doing something extraordinary.  

For Jon Prior and his sons, Matthew and Luke, the story began in a much quieter way.  

It began with school clinics, footies, backpacks, player visits, the G-Man turning up at the assemblies, and the two young boys slowly falling in love with a club that was still learning how to stand on its feet.  

Today, many GIANTS supporters know them as the Orcas.  

You might have seen them at ENGIE Stadium, with flags and banners raised high. You might have seen them in Bay 224, behind the goals, loud, proud and impossible to miss. You would have definitely seen them at the Guildford Hotel, helping turn a Watch Party into something that feels less like a pub gathering and more like a family tradition.  

But before the banners, before the speaker, before the orca sign became their identity, they were simply a father and his sons who were looking for something to share.  

Jon grew up as a rugby league fan. Naturally, when he had children, he thought Matthew and Luke would follow the same path. He took them to the games, tried to introduce them to the sport he had grown up with, and waited for the same connection to happen.  

It never quite did.  

Then the GIANTS came along.  

At the time, Matthew and Luke were still young, moving through kindergarten and primary school. The GIANTS were everywhere in Western Sydney. Coaching clinics arrived at schools. Players visited classrooms and assemblies. There were giveaways and a clear sense that this new club was not waiting for people to find it. It was going out into the community and making itself known.  

Soon enough, the boys were begging Jon to take them to the games, and he happily obliged. 

Their first GIANTS game was Hawthorn in 2015. As they recall, they were right up in the top tier, at the very back of the grandstand, the kind of seats where the game could feel distant, but the emotions could pull you in. The boys didn’t care where they were sitting. They were banging on the back of the stand, clapping their clappers together, yelling and enjoying every moment of the game.  

The GIANTS won that day. As Jon recalls, Jeremy Cameron kicked a bag. The GIANTS song rang around the stadium. Back then, the Priors didn’t even know the words.  

They learned them quickly.  

Not long after, they were at another game; something happened that changed the way Jon saw the club. After the match, the players came out for a huge autograph session. There were tables and chairs set up for signing shirts, taking pictures, and for players to take time to speak with the kids and their fans.  

For Matthew and Luke, it was magic.  

For Jon, watching it as a parent meant something deeper. He saw how kind the players were. He saw how gently they spoke to the boys, how the players remembered them in later sessions, how they joked with them and made them feel seen.  

Jon noticed something else as well: many of those GIANTS players were barely older than the kids themselves. They were young men, some still teenagers, carrying the responsibility of growing a new club while still making time for the fans who looked at them as their heroes.  

That was the hook.  

From then on, the GIANTS were not just players on television. They were people who Matthew and Luke had met. People who had signed their jumpers. People who had spoken to them and people who remembered them.  

Once that happens, a club stops being distant. It becomes personal.  

For Jon, the GIANTS also offered something he had not always felt in other sporting environments. It felt safe. It felt friendly. It felt like a place where he could take his children and know they would have a full day out, not just two hours of footy. There were activities around the ground, kids’ zones, player areas, giveaways, and a family atmosphere which makes the day feel bigger than the game itself.  

That is what built the foundation.  

Then came the banners.  

At first, it was small things. Jon made simple GIANTS singlets for the boys, drawing the logos onto plain white fabric with textas. They leaned into the colour, the noise and the fun of showing support.  

When Adam Kingsley arrived and the phrase “Why Not Us?” became part of the club’s language, Jon decided it would make a great banner. He grabbed orange sheets, cut out the letters, and started putting them together in the garage.  

And then Luke saw it; his eyes lit up, and he said.  

“Dad, you do not realise how long I’ve wanted to have a banner for.”  

That moment stayed with Jon. It was one of those small parenting moments that suddenly reveals something much bigger. To him, it was just a banner. To the boys, it was identity. It was being seen, standing out in the crowd, and being part of the colour and the match day.  

The first banner opened the door.  

Then came the orca. 

During a GIANTS game where the team was behind, the coaching staff held up a large sign of an orca, a killer whale. It was one of those quirky football signs that probably meant something inside the four walls but looked mysterious to everyone else. The GIANTS turned the game around, and for Jon, the image stuck.  

He wanted that orca on a banner.  

He did not fully know what it meant, and most fans did not either. People kept asking. Some thought Orca was their surname. Eventually, rather than explaining something they did not fully understand themselves, the Priors simply became Team Orca.  

And somehow, it made perfect sense.  

The name was unusual, funny, memorable, and entirely theirs. Like the family itself, the name carried energy, presence, and a sense of mischief. When the GIANTS needed a lift, the Orcas were there, banner held high, refusing to let the game fall flat.  

From one banner came many. Now there are around ten, brought out depending on the mood of the match. The Annoying Orange. The Callan Ward Reliability banner. The pieces of colour that have become part of how people recognise them.  

Then the Orcas took the same energy to the Guildford Hotel for the watch parties.  

When the “They Might Become GIANTS” podcast crew started organising watch parties, Jon, Matthew, and Luke began turning up. At first, they brought the banners almost on a whim. They put them under the TV. It worked. So, they kept doing it.  

Then it grew.  

More banners. More decorations. Bunting. Balloons. An inflatable figure, which Luke wears with pride and passion. A speaker for the players' goal songs and the great four-metre Lachie Whitfield poster, rescued from banner-making and given a second life behind the bar.  

Then came the weekly ritual of putting different watch party members’ faces on it, creating mystery, laughter and something for people to look forward to.  

It sounds silly from the outside.  

But communities are not built only by grand gestures. They are built by rituals. They are built by the people who bring banners, set up the room, play the songs, and ensure everyone else has the right to fully enjoy the moment.  

That is what the Orcas do.  

When a GIANTS player kicks a goal, and the song comes on, the kids reach for the speaker. They run laps with banners and flags. Adults join in too. The room becomes louder, lighter, younger. As Jon says, it brings out the little kids in people.  

That is the beauty of it.  

The Orcas have helped make the Guildford feel like more than a pub. It has become a meeting point, a second grandstand, a place where strangers became friends. Jon believes the watch parties can sometimes feel as good as being at the ground and sometimes even better, because of the closeness of the people inside that room.  

When the GIANTS win, the joy is shared. When they lose, the pain is shared too. There is comfort in being surrounded by people who understand why it matters.  

For the Priors, this is not casual support. It is part of their winter, their family rhythm where the memories are made.  

Matthew and Luke, now 17 and 15, have grown up with the GINATS, collecting autographs, chasing footies, watching players become heroes and slowly becoming known themselves.  

Receiving a ball from a player is never small. Nick Haynes handing one over in his 200th game became a lasting memory. Callum Brown did the same after the heartbreaking 2023 preliminary final, carrying that mix of pain and pride only football can bring.  

There are other moments too.  

For Matthew, some of the most meaningful memories have come through his connection with the players. Drawing a portrait of Sam Taylor and having it signed was a special moment. He also takes immense pride in completing work experience with the GIANTS in 2024, stepping inside the very club that shaped his childhood, meeting the people behind it, and experiencing the joy of players recognising him, greeting him, and making him feel part of the GIANTS family.  

These memories matter because they show young supporters that they are seen.  

Luke has his own memories: the Guildford Hotel erupting when Lachlan Keeffe kicked the winner against Melbourne, the speaker blasting, the room exploding, the kind of wins that become folklore.  

And through it all is Julianne, the boys’ mum, who was never a sports fan, but the GIANTS drew her in too. She may still need help with the rules, but she knows the players and their nicknames.  

That says everything.  

This has become a family language.  

Jon knows what it means to lose a team. He grew up supporting the Western Suburbs Magpies, who disappeared in 1999, and that feeling has never left him. 

That experience fuels his GIANTS passion. It reminds him clubs are not guaranteed, and they rely on people, commitment and families who keep showing up no matter what.  

That is why he makes the most of every moment, every game, every watch party, every banner, every win and loss, every winter weekend spent together.  

Because when you have lost a team, you do not take belonging for granted.  

That is why the Orcas matter.  

They represent more than three supporters. They reflect what the GIANTS are building in Western Sydney, a club of different people, cultures and stories, which is united by one feeling.  

At the ground and the Guildford Hotel, people come together. Differences do not divide them; they enrich the experiences.  

That is Western Sydney.  

That is the GIANTS.  

That is the Orcas.  

A father and his sons. A family that found a club. A club that gave them memories. A community that became friends. A banner that became identity.  

For Jon, Matthew, and Luke Prior, the GIANTS are not just a team but a part of their family history. They have grown with the club, through joy, frustration, heartbreak, and hope.  

And still every week, they show up, banners raised, speaker ready, orange everywhere.  

They are there for the moments that feel like something more, the wins that make strangers hug, the losses that leave everyone quiet but still together, the goals that send kids running and adults laughing like they’re ten again.  

And if you’ve ever stood in that crowd, or sat in that room, or sung the GIANTS song with people who feel like family, then you know exactly what that means.  

That is what the Orcas have built around the GIANTS: not just support but belonging. Not just noise but love. Not just a match day ritual, but a family story written in orange and charcoal.