[4] The club entered a first-rate league for the first time in 1889 when it joined the Victorian Junior Football Association (VJFA), finishing 20th with two wins and six draws.

However, in May of that year, Metropolitan Junior Football Association (MJFA) club St Francis Xavier disbanded.

[4] For the 1927 season, Kew entered the Victorian Football League (VFL) Sub-Districts, and won the premiership in its first year in the competition.

[4] Kew District joined the Eastern Suburban Football League (ESFL) in 1934 but folded in 1938 after an unsuccessful finals campaign in 1937.

[22][23] In 1949, amid "unruly behaviour" from a majority of other Sub-Districts clubs, Kew left and returned to the MJFA/MAFA, which had been renamed to the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA) in 1933.

[4] Kew won the 1949 minor premiership and was set to be automatically promoted to B Section, but after a round 18 victory over East Caulfield, an anonymous caller to VAFA headquarters stated Kew was fielding an ineligible player who had fought as a professional boxer during his army service in World War II.

[27] North Kew was formed in 1932 and had been competing in the Southern Football League (SFL) prior to the merger.

Dwindling squad numbers meant one of the sides withdrew after round 7, while the other able to continue and ended up as runners-up in the grand final.