The club's colours for most of its time in the VFA were green and yellow, and it was based in the Melbourne suburb of Northcote.

This changed in 1928, when the club's ability to draw spectators was most threatened by its strong VFL neighbours Collingwood and Fitzroy.

In 1928, the club worked to eliminate its debt; and then in 1929, embarked on a strong recruiting campaign which netted Percy Rowe as captain-coach, and Ernie Wilson, Greg Stockdale, Norm Cockram, Tommy Corrigan, Bill Koop and Frank Seymour, among others, from VFL clubs.

With much of the credit going to Percy Rowe's leadership, Frank Seymour's then record-breaking goalkicking, and the club committee's tireless fundraising,[13] Northcote went on to win a three-peat of minor and major premierships in 1932, 1933 and 1934.

Through this time, Seymour became the second player to kick 100 goals in a VFA season in 1930, and repeating the achievement in 1932 and 1934.

Collingwood's Harold Rumney joined the club as captain-coach, but retired after a 1–4 start to the season.

He was replaced by Alec Grey and Jack Lyngcoln, serving unusually as co-coaches, who brought the club back to reach the final four with an 11–6–1 record; and, through the latter part of the year, the club trained at Preston because Northcote Park was unavailable to complete drainage works ahead of the cricket season.

[25] This weakness was reflected in generally poor onfield performances – with the notable exception of a preliminary final appearance in 1954 when the club was fully amateur.

[32] It was suspended from the VFA in November 1987 after it lost tenancy of Northcote Park and could no longer commit to fielding a team in all three grades, and ultimately folded.

It also wore maroon guernseys for a few years following World War I due to the unavailability of green and gold wool at the time.