The Raiders first premiership chance in 25 years is about the Green Machine Canberra has been without for so long.

A five-year-old nephew, who has only this year started falling in love with rugby league, spent his school holidays listening to and then writing down to the Raiders' Bad and mean, Green Machine song.

The video of him rehearsing before the game on Sunday night would have melted even the coldest of hearts, and there have understandably been plenty of cold-hearted Raiders fans over the years.

They've been waiting since the mid 1990s for a chance to be genuine contenders again.

The pain of being laughed at and forgotten, especially in the past decade, left some deep scars.

But then you see joy of the new generation, like the theme song-singing nephew. They don't know what it's like to be also-rans.

They don't know what it's like to be snubbed by free to air television, or hearing about NRL officials who said they wished the Raiders would "wither on the vine".

The new generation only see hope, and every Raiders fan in Canberra has bought into that this week.

The "Up the milk" catchphrase is going viral. Seeing the Raiders take centre stage again reminds people of the great times.

The sight of Chicka Ferguson jinking past defenders to score a crucial try in the 1989 grand final, or Big Mal Meninga latching on to an intercept pass to score a try in his farewell game in the 1994 decider.

This week has reminded people why they started supporting the Raiders in the first place and they can sense this is just the start of a new era.

The long lines of people to get into a training session on Monday and then fans lining the streets to wave goodbye to a window-tinted bus was the icing on the cake.

The mission to rebuild the Raiders' supporter base started long ago on a fact-finding mission in the United States.

Raiders fans wear their hearts on their sleeve. When the team is going well, they eat green sausages on green bread and skip work to get an autograph.

When the team is struggling, they unleash their frustration on the coach, the players and the club.

That is what gives sport its theatre, but the challenge for the Raiders was finding a way to harness that passion in the good and bad times.

Almost 12 months after Ricky Stuart, Don Furner and Jason Mathie landed in the US, the club introduced the Viking clap. It was a considered move on a day 19,000 fans watched a match against Parramatta.

"Did you hear them doing the Viking clap with two minutes left in the preliminary final," one official said this week. "That's authentic. You can't buy that."

The Raiders are back and everyone knows it, but not just because they're playing well.

The average crowd at Canberra games this year was 16,238 - the highest mark since Meninga's farewell season in 1994.

For many of the Raiders' new fans, the legends of green sausages, bread, beer and houses was a myth until the past few weeks. Now they get to live what they thought was a dream.

Why are the Raiders ... green? Is it really because Les McIntyre or Don Furner senior's couch was green?

Former Raiders chairman John McIntyre has been able to walk down memory lane this week, answering requests for interviews and stepping back into his former role.

But the green couch theory ... it's a myth. "That was a good one, but not true," McIntyre laughs.

"We ran a competition, with help of promotion from newspapers, and green was the winning entry.

"We didn't award a prize, though, because the lady who won put herself under her maiden name because she was married to an original board member."

Even then the lime green, or 1989-premiership-winning green they'll wear this weekend, wasn't the first choice.

"We wanted a mottled green, like the Australian team, but the establishment wouldn't let the Raiders use it. It turned out to be pretty good anyway."