They joined the Melbourne District Football Association (MDFA) and were premiers in 1913, 1914 and again in 1920 (premiers and champions), their strength helped them get promoted to the Victorian Football League reserves from 1921 until 1924, Coburg was admitted as a senior club in the Victorian Football Association in 1925[10] – as a response to Footscray, North Melbourne and Hawthorn joining the VFL[11] Coburg was immediately successful in the VFA, playing finals in its first season and winning three consecutive premierships from 1926 until 1928; however, these were the club's last top-division premiership for more than fifty years.

The club was dominant in the junior/seconds competition from its inception in 1928 up to World War II, winning nine seconds premierships in thirteen seasons, including four in a row from 1937 until 1940.

[12] Coburg has the second highest number of reported players in a VFA match, which occurred in the 1933 grand final against Northcote.

[13] After going into debt attempting to fight the council's move,[14] the club came to an arrangement to merge with North Melbourne,[15] and fourteen committeemen left the club and moved to North Melbourne as part of the merge; but, dissenting committeemen and life members opposed to the merger formed a rival committee, and with the support of the VFA executive, were able to continue operating Coburg as a stand-alone club in 1965,[16] playing games in Port Melbourne.

[20] After many years in the doldrums, the club enjoyed somewhat of a rebirth in the late 1970s, with a continued period of success until the 1990.

Fitzroy, which had played in the VFA between 1884 and 1896, then in the VFL/AFL from 1897 until 1996, no longer operated a football team following the creation of the Brisbane Lions in late 1996, but it still had an administrative presence.

Under what was effectively a sponsorship arrangement, Coburg became known as the Coburg-Fitzroy Lions, taking its new name at the beginning of August 1999.

The club retained navy blue and red as its main colours, but adopted Fitzroy's red, royal blue and gold colours as an alternative strip Despite large crowds of both Lions fans attending the home games, financial problems and AFL pressure, meant that Coburg were forced to align with an AFL reserves side, and the partnership with Fitzroy was severed at the end of the 2000 season.

The club is yet to achieve any success since its return to stand-alone operation, and has not finished outside the bottom four during this period, with the exception of the 2021 season.

During this time, the club was coached by Peter German (2014–2017),[23] Leigh Adams (2018–2019)[24] and Andrew Sturgess (2020–2022).

[26] Instead, in 2021 two Coburg sides competed in the Premier and Second Division of the South Eastern Women's Football (SEWF) competition.

This was added to further in 2018 when Lions captain Tom Goodwin walked out of the club to play for Port Melbourne and later in 2021 when its star midfielder Marcus Lentini also joined the Borough.

Coburg and the Preston/Northern Bullants share a strong local rivalry and compete in the Battle of Bell Street.

They have close ties with indigenous community through their NAIDOC week game, and also hold the annual Vicky Cleary game, which is a domestic violence awareness raiser dedicated to the late sister of club legend Phil Cleary, who was tragically killed by an ex-partner in 1987.

He is closely followed by cult figure, Vin "The Tank" Taranto, who played during the 1980s and the dark days of the 1990s, when the club was at its lowest and almost folded.