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They may not always have enjoyed the most glamorous of reputations (although, as we shall see, there have been at least two eras in which their name was virtually synonymous with glamour) but the Kangaroos - known for most of their history as the North Melbourne Football Club - have played a unique and highly significant role in the history of Australian football.

Formed as long ago as 1869, making it the fourth oldest among current AFL clubs (see footnote 1), details of its inception are rather sketchy.  It would probably be reasonable to imagine, however, that the circumstances giving rise to the club's formation were more circumstantial and informal than pre-meditated.  Among the facts that we do know are that the club's first ever match took place in 'the Royal Park' (within the western boundaries of today's Zoological Gardens), and - reputedly - that the ball used in the match was purchased by a local resident called Tom Jacks, who sold some roofing iron to pay for it.  As for the result of the match, and even North Melbourne's opponents, such details are lost in the mists of time.

All of this is not meant to suggest that football as a whole at this time was completely disorganised and uncoordinated.  In actual fact, it was evolving rapidly, aided in 1870 by the drawing up for the first time of a proper, formalised 'premiership fixture', as well as by the introduction of an independent, on field rule adjudicator, or 'umpire' (prior to this, the two competing team captains had been jointly responsible for applying the laws of the game, and ensuring fair play).  North Melbourne participated in this inaugural premiership season as a junior club, although matches against senior teams, sometimes 'at odds' (see footnote 2), were also occasionally arranged.   In 1872, North Melbourne achieved a notable win by 2 goals to 1 over Carlton in just such a match, providing evidence that the team was gradually increasing in strength.

After enjoying a highly commendable 1873 season which yielded 7 wins, 6 draws and just 1 defeat (against Albert Park, an established senior club), North Melbourne was officially accorded senior status, along with another promising junior club, St Kilda.

Football in Melbourne during the 1870s was gaining rapidly in popularity, but as far as its protagonists, the players, were concerned it remained essentially an amateur pre-occupation.  The introduction of an agreed fixture list in 1870 had been a major step forward, but teams still sometimes failed to turn up or, as happened in one match between North Melbourne and Carlton in 1874, became more interested in brawling than playing football, leading to the umpire abandoning play.  This faux pas aside, however, 1874 proved to be a promising debut year in elite company for the northerners, who won 7 and drew 2 of their 11 'completed' fixtures, a success rate bettered only by the established 'old brigade' of Carlton, Melbourne and Albert Park.

As any modern Kangaroos supporter will - with due apologies for the pun - ruefully confirm, threats to the club's viability and survival have recurred, with depressing frequency, throughout its history.  In 1876, the club effectively ceased to exist as an independent organisation, but instead of going to the wall completely it managed to secure an amalgamation with Albert Park.  Moreover, despite fielding teams under the somewhat lumbering name of 'Albert Park cum North Melbourne' it soon emerged that it was the northerners, who supplied both the club captain in the shape of Harry Fuhrhop, and most of the better players, who were, in effect, the dominant partner.  The upshot of this was that, after the merged side had enjoyed an impressive season on the field to finish 3rd on the wins table behind Carlton and Melbourne, the impetus was there for local inhabitants to dig into their pockets and come up with the funds necessary to re-establish the North Melbourne Football Club as an independent organisation.  At Sutcliffe's Hotel on 12 April 1877 the re-constituted club, bearing the name of the town in which it was officially situated, Hotham, was formally inaugurated, and within weeks it had emerged as one of the prime movers in the establishment of the second major Victorian Rules Football Association to be formed in 1877, the VFA (see footnote 3).

Competition in the VFA got underway on 2 June 1877, when Hotham and Melbourne contested the new body's first ever official fixture.  Perhaps appropriately, the game ended in a draw, with both sides scoring 1 goal.  At season's end, 'the Australasian' summarised the club's efforts thus:

Hotham, merely another name for the old North Melbourne, which last year was a wing, or might I say the body, of the Albert Park, but now possessing an independent separate existence makes a good third (behind Carlton and Melbourne) and is little, if any, behind in point of play to either of the preceding, and numbers some first class players, such as Fuhrhop, McLean, Byrne, Ryan, Gardiner, Lacy, Grainger, Thompson, Dillon, Power, Smith and Swift in its ranks.  (See footnote 4)

Hotham's performances during the VFA's first eleven seasons were inconsistent but seldom inept.  At best, the club finished 3rd twice, while a wooden spoon in an evenly contested 1883 season represented its nadir.

In 1882, following an amalgamation between the Hotham Cricket and Football Clubs, the team based itself at what would become its long term home of the North Melbourne Recreation Ground, Arden Street, where in years to come the famous gasometer would dominate the skyline, making the ground one of the most instantly recognisable in Melbourne.  Two years later, at the insistence of the VFA, it replaced its blue and white horizontal striped jumpers with the now familiar vertically striped design, in order to provide a visible contrast when playing Geelong.  Then, in 1888, came the third significant development of the decade with the club reverting to its original name of North Melbourne.  This followed an Order of Council of the previous year which had seen the Town of Hotham officially re-named as the Town of North Melbourne.

The club's penchant for intercolonial travel was exercised on several occasions during the 1880s, with trips to Tasmania in 1881 and 1887, and South Australia in 1889.  There were also matches in Melbourne against Norwood in 1880 and Port Adelaide in 1889.  Of a total of 10 such intercolonial contests, Hotham/North Melbourne was successful in 8.

As the 1890s developed it became increasingly evident that the VFA, which on occasion contained as many as fifteen clubs of widely divergent strength, was becoming unwieldy.  As early as 1889, Geelong had proposed the formation of a new association comprising a nucleus of the strongest VFA clubs supplemented by teams from throughout the colony of Victoria.  Although nothing came of this initial proposal, similar suggestions were mooted more or less annually until things finally came to a head in 1896, when officials from Geelong, Essendon, Collingwood, Fitzroy, Melbourne and South Melbourne met together and agreed to establish the breakaway Victorian Football League, which would get underway the following year.  Despite finishing 6th (above Geelong) on the VFA ladder in 1896, North Melbourne was not invited to join, for reasons which Gerard Dowling describes as primarily economic and political, although perceptions of the club's potential playing strength may also have contributed to the decision (see footnote 5).  

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Charlie Cameron, a star wingman for North during the 1920s.

When the VFL commenced operations in 1897 it consisted not only of the six clubs mentioned above, but also Carlton, which like Geelong had finished below North on the ladder in 1896, and the perennially weak St Kilda, which was presumably included as it enabled the new competition to extend its reach into Melbourne's southern suburbs.  As for the VFA, it was reduced overnight into a runt organisation of perceptibly inferior stature, comprising five established clubs which between them had never won a single premiership, plus newcomers Brunswick.  North Melbourne's difficulties in this new milieu were compounded by the unavailability of its home ground at Arden Street, which was being reconstructed, but to its credit the side performed admirably, winning 14 out of 20 matches to come home 2nd behind Port Melbourne, an achievement repeated in both of the next two seasons.

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Indeed, North Melbourne's initial 'repeat performance' could not, arguably, have been any easier.  After finishing the 1904 home and away season in 4th place, North overcame minor premiers Richmond by 4 points in a hard fought and somewhat controversial semi final after which the losers were intensely critical of umpire Allen (see footnote 6), before comprehensively outplaying Footscray in the final.  Admittedly, North only actually won this latter encounter by 17 points, but with 19 scoring shots to 7 its overall supremacy was unquestioned.  

The situation now, of course, was that Richmond, as the season's minor premier, had the right to challenge North Melbourne to a final, decisive match to determine the destiny of the 1904 premiership.  However, displaying behaviour more traditionally - if erroneously - associated with the lemming than the Tiger, the Richmond Football Club issued a statement to the effect that they would only participate in a challenge final if the umpire appointed to control the match was somebody other than the aforementioned persona non grata by the name of Allen.  Such a proclamation was, of course, the equivalent of a red rag to a bull to the VFA, which not surprisingly saw itself as having little alternative but to appoint Mr. Allen as the challenge final umpire, whereupon Richmond, to muddy the metaphor, manifested a mule-like stubbornness by refusing to take part.

The upshot was that North Melbourne, having remained unbeaten during the finals series, was awarded the flag - surely the easiest, and certainly one of the most controversial, VFA premierships of the twentieth century.

Richmond had its revenge in 1905 when it convincingly defeated minor premier North Melbourne in both the final (by 20 points) and challenge final (by 25 points).

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Richmond's and University's eventual admission to the VFL left the newly concocted and as yet unnamed North-West Melbourne club in a state of limbo which was rapidly transformed into hell, as the VFA, at a special meeting convened on 22 November 1907 at Jackson's Hotel, voted resoundingly to expel both North Melbourne and West Melbourne, individually and jointly, from the competition (see footnote 7).

Neville Huggins, a rugged defender for the Shinboners in the 1930s.