North Melbourne Football Club
The North Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Kangaroos or colloquially the Roos, is a professional Australian rules football club. The men's team competes in the Australian Football League, and the women's team in the AFL Women's. The Kangaroos also field a reserves men's team in the Victorian Football League and women's team in the VFLW.
Informally founded in the suburb of North Melbourne in 1858 during the scratch matches era, it is the fourth-oldest club in the competition. The club has been based at Arden Street Oval since 1882. Arden Street serves as its headquarters, training facilities and home ground for its women's side. The club's senior men's team plays its home matches at Marvel Stadium in the Docklands area of Melbourne, as well as Bellerive Oval in Hobart, Tasmania which is also used by the women's team as a secondary home ground.
The club's mascot is a grey kangaroo wearing the club uniform, and its use dates from the mid-20th century. The club is also unofficially known as "The Shinboners", a term which dates to the 19th century. The club's motto is victoria amat curam, Latin for "victory demands dedication".
The Kangaroos have won four VFL/AFL premierships; in 1975, 1977, 1996 and 1999. They have also won two AFL Women's premiership; in 2024 and 2025.
History
Formative years
According to historian Gerard Dowling, the club was founded around 1869, although he and the club itself recognised a potential formation year as early as 1860. However, due to a lack of records, the club leaned towards the club's discontinuation around 1864; and decided to adopt 1869 as its year of establishment.The borough was initially called North Melbourne, then Hotham from 1859, before the town reverted to its original name on August 27, 1887. The club primarily went by "North Melbourne Football Club" until 1876. As a foundation club of the Victorian Football Association in 1877, the club was known as Hotham, reclaiming its original name, North Melbourne in 1888. James Henry Gardiner is cited as a significant figure during the formative period of the club and remains so.
A match between North Melbourne and the South Yarra Football Club appears in a 1865 newspaper article. On 14 August 1869, North Melbourne played the employees of Messrs, Walker, May, and Co. at Princes Bridge in what is now central Melbourne. North also fielded a second-20 team that day. A few weeks later, on 2 September, North Melbourne played South Yarra for the Challenge Cup. North Melbourne defeated the Surrey Football Club at Royal Park on 18 September 1869. According to Dowling, Harry Fuhrhop was a pivotal figure among the generation of players being reported in the media from 1869. Fuhrop is listed regularly from 1869 representing the club as Captain and a player, and further in 1884 as a general committee member. Other early newspaper reports include playing Carlton United at Royal Park on 24 September 1870, and 1 October 1870 against East Brunswick.
Regular premiership matches of Australian Football commenced in Victoria in 1870. Although North Melbourne was a part of this, it was classed as a "junior club". The words junior and senior at the time were not used to distinguish underage side but rather the playing quality and strength of the side. The Australasian noted them as being "one of the best of many junior clubs". The club graduated to senior ranks in 1874, finishing fourth. Along with the promotion, the club adopted its first uniform of blue and white horizontal stripes.
In 1876, twelve players from North Melbourne defected to join Albert Park. It was in 1939 that Brunswick resident Mr A.M. Alexander wrote in a letter to the editor of The Argus with numerous historical errors, that the dozen North Melbourne players which defected gave strong influence over their destination club, "Albert Park-cum-North Melbourne." No mention however is ever made by the Albert Park Football Club of them merging with North Melbourne, including no mention in their 1877 Annual General Meeting reported by The Argus on 21 April 1877.
Despite the loss of twelve senior players in 1876, North Melbourne Football Club maintained its reserves team playing under the name Hotham United. The club's determination to continue football operations as Hotham United forced them to bolster their player stocks by recruiting youths who had recently completed their studies at St Mary's Anglican School. It was also in 1876 that the club played for the first time in their colours of blue and white. North Melbourne's ties to St Mary's Anglican School, established in 1853, began when students played football at the corner of Queens and Howard Streets. Impressed by the students' progress, the football committee recruited school leavers from St Mary's and increased recruitment from the school in 1876. This ultimately led the committee to adopt St Mary's blue and white colours in 1876, which continue to be reflected in the club's colours today. Recruits in 1876 included Sam Butt, who would later captain the club in the 1880s. For the clubs monumental efforts to keep North afloat, the rewards came in 1877 when the Victorian Football accepted them as Hotham Football Club as a foundation member of the elite VFA competition.
Royal Park served as the club's home ground until 1882, when they moved to the Hotham Cricket Ground.
Association years
Football took a significant step forward in 1877, with the formation of the Victorian Football Association, the first properly constituted administrative body in the colony of Victoria. Hotham was one of five senior metropolitan clubs to compete in the inaugural season.In 1882, Hotham football club once again became co-located with the Hotham Cricket Club when they moved into the North Melbourne Recreation Reserve. The move was part of an effort to improve the ground improvements at the Hotham Cricket Ground, which was the name of the Reserve at the time, and a few years after the football club was given legal control of the cricket club in 1879.
In 1886, the club adopted the traditional uniform of blue and white vertical stripes at the insistence of the VFA, who wanted a visible contrast between Geelong's and Hotham's uniforms. Additionally, the club returned to its original "North Melbourne Football Club" name on 30 March 1888 after the local government area reverted its name to North Melbourne.
The 1880s saw the club develop a penchant for inter-colonial travel with trips to Tasmania and South Australia. Hotham also found itself well represented at the first ever intercolonial representative game in 1879, with four players from the club gaining selection for Victoria.
Disregarded by the VFL
The VFA grew to 13 senior clubs in the 1890s. Led by Geelong and Essendon, the largest clubs of the VFA formed their own breakaway league, the Victorian Football League, in 1896. Despite finishing 6th in 1896, North Melbourne was not invited to the breakaway competition. The main reasons for being excluded were:- North had not won a premiership yet, and thus was not considered a powerful club
- The industrialisation of the locality had drained the club's income streams
- The club had a strong reputation for hooliganism from their fans
- There was a lot of bad blood between Collingwood and North following a torrid engagement in the previous season
- Essendon felt threatened by the proximity of North Melbourne
- A court case against the North Melbourne Cricket Club had damaged the Football Club's status
North merged with fellow VFA football club West Melbourne in 1907, which at the time had lost its home ground. The joint venture saw a chance of promotion, and the club applied for admission to the more prestigious VFL in 1908, but Richmond and University were admitted instead. North was kicked out of the VFA during the 1907/08 offseason as a result of applying to join the VFL, before the local community re-established the North Melbourne Football Club under a new committee, successfully enabling the club to play in the VFA in the 1908 season.
"The Invincibles"
The reformation of the club necessitated a massive cleanout of the team, leaving only two players remaining from the previous season. The 1910 season was marked by one of the most sensational transfers in Victorian football history, when Andy Curran masterminded the clearance of Carlton's famed "Big Four" of 'Mallee' Johnson, Fred Jinks, Charlie Hammond and Frank 'Silver' Caine to North Melbourne. These signings secured the Northerners' third premiership in 1910.The 1912 finals series was one of the most amazing ever, with the semi-final having to be played three times, after North and Brunswick drew twice. North was eventually victorious and moved on to the final, but lost the game by a mere four points with the last kick of the day.
The next few years were punctuated by "The Invincibles". In the Northerners' most illustrious period ever, the club went undefeated from 1914 to 1919, collecting premierships in 1914, 1915 and 1918 – the competition was in recess in 1916 and 1917 due to World War I. As well as this, the club won the championship in both 1915 and 1918 for finishing on top of the ladder, and accounted for VFL side St Kilda comfortably. During this period the club won 58 consecutive matches including 49 successive premiership matches, a record that has remained unmatched in Association or League history since.
Despite being rejected from the VFL in both 1896 and 1907, North persisted in trying to gain admission into the League. On 30 June 1921, North told its players it would disband and try to gain entry to the VFL by the 'back-door'. Essendon League Football Club had lost its playing ground at East Melbourne and had decided to acquire the North Melbourne Recreation Reserve as a new playing ground. North accepted their proposal in the idea that the clubs would amalgamate. All of North's players were urged to join the Essendon League Club to help facilitate the amalgamation. The amalgamation was foiled when some members of the VFA launched a successful legal challenge. As a result, the Essendon League Club moved instead to the Essendon Oval, replacing the ground's original occupants, Essendon Association.
North was now without a playing team and the Essendon Association Club was now without a ground, so as a matter of convenience the two clubs amalgamated so they could compete in the 1922 season. As it had after the merger with West Melbourne, North once again managed to avert its destruction. During this Period, North's main rivals were Footscray, meeting them in three Grand Finals.