There have been plenty of excellent - and controversial - players and coaches, memorable (and infamous) administrators and an enormous number of matches that have left an indelible mark during that period.

But there have been only a few figures in my time with the game who have remained a constant presence.

Sydney FC coach Graham Arnold, who crowned his career by leading the Sky Blues to a third A-League title in that penalty shoot-out win over Melbourne Victory last Sunday, is one of them. It was his second title, having also coached Central Coast to glory in 2013.

The man on the opposite bench, Victory boss Kevin Muscat, is one of the few other figures in the local game who has had similar longevity, both as a player and, like Arnold, as a title-winning coach.

Arnold's achievement this season cannot be understated.

Don't forget that last season the Sky Blues were the biggest disappointments in the A-League, failing to make the finals.

Arnold has steered them through a record-breaking campaign when they lost only once and amassed more points during the home-and-away campaign than any other team in history.

These days Arnold is one of the elder statesmen of the sport even though, at 53, he is hardly a veteran.

He is, for example, almost 10 years older than Muscat. It's a generation in playing terms, but hardly an epoch in real life. The two of them were, for a few years, teammates in the Socceroos during the late 1990s, when Arnold was a wily old forward often forced to be the workhorse of the team when used as a lone striker by then coach Eddie Thompson and Muscat was an emerging, young, hard-nosed defender.

Arnold's triumph last weekend represents a victory for a character whose CV defines what it is to be an Australian football man.

He, like a handful of other leading Australian coaches (Ange Postecoglou, Ante Milicic, Muscat, Ernie Merrick, Tony Popovic, who also played in the NSL before moving to Europe) represents a bridge between what Frank Lowy used to call old soccer and new football.

With his crinkly hair and then almost compulsory moustache, Arnold was one of the first locally produced players to make it in Europe, paving the way - alongside the likes of Frank Farina, David Mitchell, Alan Davidson and Eddie Krncevic - for the so-called golden generation that came along later to lift the Australian game to levels it had never previously reached.

He wore the No.9 shirt in the Olympic team that stunned outsiders by reaching the last eight at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. Back then he was a 25-year-old part-timer with Sydney United, scoring goals in the NSL and working to supplement his income.

After the Games he became one of the most prominent of Australia's foreign legion when, in 1990 he went to the Netherlands to play for Roda JC - the first club he appeared for in an eight-year odyssey, which took him to Liege and Charleroi in Belgium and back to Holland with NAC Breda before finishing up in Japan with Hiroshima Sanfrecce.

That, however, wasn't the end, as Arnold came back to play for - and invest in - Northern Spirit, once the exemplar for what administrators then hoped would become a new look NSL.

His longevity with the Socceroos is often easy to forget. Arnold made his debut with the national team back in 1985 as a 22-year-old, and finished as a player in 1997.

An abiding memory of him is of the veteran striker coming off the bench in the last minutes of the 2-2 draw with Iran as the Socceroos desperately tried to find another goal to qualify for the World Cup on that fateful, frenzied night at the MCG.

And within three years he was back in the national team set, this time as assistant coach with his playing contemporary Farina.

There are plenty of memorable moments from that era, which tends to be forgotten now, but the victory over France in the Confederations Cup in 2001 was a feather in the cap for the tyro team as it felt its way in the international game.

Arnold is, among other things, a great survivor. When Farina was dismissed after the Confederations Cup of 2005 and Guus Hiddink parachuted in to oversee World Cup qualification, Arnold's familiarity with the Dutch system, coaching and thinking made him an invaluable aid for Hiddink.

He was then on hand to take the reins for a while on his own as interregnum coach - highlighted by a rather unhappy Asian Cup of 2007 - before Hiddink's successor, Pim Verbeek, came in.

Arnold's teams are built on structure, organisation and hard work, which is probably why they don't get the kudos they might, although that has changed with this Sydney outfit, who got their just reward for a season of excellence last Sunday. It was Arnold's triumph every bit as much as his players.