[1] As of 2023[update], the earliest record of a game of association football being played in the town comes from December 1875, when the Sheffield Daily Telegraph reported that a Worksop team had won its opening match against Harthill.

It finished third in the league in 1903 and, in 1908, reached the first round of the FA Cup for the first time, losing 1–9 at Stamford Bridge to Chelsea in front of 18,995 spectators.

In 1923, it drew Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane – the Tigers pulled off a shock by holding Spurs to a goal-less draw.

Worksop won its third and last Midland League title in 1973 and, a year later, re-joined the NPL, eventually finding its feet at this higher level.

In 2004, it was a founder member of the Conference North, but it only lasted three years in the division before being relegated back to the Northern Premier League.

In 2011, the club finally returned to Sandy Lane, but this time as tenants of Worksop Parramore, which had bought the ground and allowed the Tigers to play there.

At the end of the season, the club's owner, Jason Clark, revealed that he would no longer be funding the club, plunging it into a financial crisis, and shortly afterwards the decision was taken to resign from the Northern Premier League and to join the Northern Counties East League (NCEL), entering the NCEL's Premier Division.

Worksop initially played at two different grounds on Netherton Road before, along with the cricket club, it moved to Bridge Meadow, also known as Newcastle Avenue, in 1891.