Melbourne City II

Formative years

The club's official foundation date of 1869 is based on Gerard Dowling's 1973 and 1997 work. Historian John Lindsay Robert Guest in 2025 drew on Gilberts work to strongly suggest that it was formed much earlier as an offshoot of the cricket club formed in 1855, with the football club starting around 1857 (which would make it older than Melbourne Football Club/Australian rules), having a continuous though poorly documented existence. Guest argues that the club took decades to formalise its constitution. Despite the absence of its original records of incorporation, the club has adopted 1869 as its official year of establishment.

The early football club between 1855 and 1859 was based at Graham's Paddock also known as Hotham Hill in North Melbourne. It had been actively searching for a more permanent home which it found at Royal Park in 1858. 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 (VFA) 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. A few weeks later, on 2 September, North Melbourne played South Yarra for the Challenge Cup. The predominantly Irish team was barred from the Challenge Cup, and the lack of public records from 1866 onward is likely to reflect this, with the club resorting to scratch matches.

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. 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 (AGM) 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 (VFA) 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 (now Arden Street Oval).

Association years

Football took a significant step forward in 1877, with the formation of the Victorian Football Association (VFA), 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 (Arden Street Oval). 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 (citation to follow).