In 1952 the club was admitted to the Ballarat Football League (BFL) as 'Ballarat North City' making its first Grand Final appearance in 1959.

The latter feat was no doubt what prompted an invitation to join the re-constructed Victorian Football League (VFL) for the 1996 season.

Throughout its history the club has maintained an excellent junior development program, producing sportsmen of the calibre of Brownlow Medallist Tony Lockett, Collingwood and past West Coast Eagles dual AFL premiership coach Michael Malthouse and Olympic marathon runner Steve Moneghetti.

Between 1952 and 1990 the main playing oval was contained within the showgrounds harness-racing and show arena with the clubrooms located in surplus 'P' huts recycled from the former WW2 Ballarat RAAF Base.

The original Showgrounds oval was noted for its muddy surface and blustery winds making it an extremely unpopular venue for opposing teams and spectators alike.

In 2009 the ground adopted the name Eureka Stadium and by that time had capacity for several thousand around its perimeter with limited seating to the front of the social club.

Between September 2015 to July 2017 both ovals were completely re-built with new grandstands, lighting and video scoreboard established at the Mars Stadium site.

[1] The arrangement ended after the 2015 season leaving North Ballarat as a stand-alone and sole regional VFL team.

Current Senior Song: Cheers boys cheers we are the Northies, It's only now we're coming into form, into form We will cover them in mud and we'll cover them in blood If they only play a fair and honest game We're the same old North that we used to be We're the same old North we will always be You can take my tip we will win the premiership For the good old black and white A consequence of having joined the VFL was that the club's juniors no longer had a local-level senior representative team in the BFL; this forced junior players to move to other senior BFL clubs (once they were of mature age) and impacted the North Ballarat Club with players losing long built connections with the club.