page_title: North Melbourne Football Club
section_title: Entering the VFL
hierarchical_section_title: North Melbourne Football Club / Club history / Entering the VFL
caption_attribution_description: English: Gasometer and Arden St oval, North Melbourne, in 1928
context_page_description: The North Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Kangaroos or less formally the Roos, the Kangas or North, is an Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League, the sport's premier competition. Founded in the suburb of North Melbourne in 1869, it is based at its traditional home ground, Arden Street Oval, and currently plays its home matches at both the nearby Docklands Stadium and Blundstone Arena in Hobart, Tasmania.
  The club's mascot is a grey kangaroo donning the club uniform, and its use dates from the mid-20th century. The club is also unofficially known as "The Shinboners", a term which dates back to its 19th-century abattoir-worker origins. The club's motto is Victoria amat curam, Latin for "Victory Demands Dedication". Aside from their representation in the AFL, the Kangaroos also field teams in the following competitions; AFL Women's, VFL Women's and Victorian Football League.
context_section_description: After three attempts, 29 years of waiting and numerous other applications to enter the VFL, finally North was rewarded for its persistence with admittance to the League in 1925, along with Footscray and Hawthorn. Even then, the opportunity was almost lost as the League delegates debated into the early hours of the morning on which clubs should be invited to join the intake. It was only after much deliberation that North Melbourne's name was eventually substituted for Prahran's making North "the lucky side" of the invitees that included Footscray and Hawthorn. North Melbourne was forced to change its uniform to avoid a clash when it joined the VFL.
  North Melbourne were cellar dwellers for its first twenty-five years of VFL membership and struggled to win matches in the superior VFL competition, with the only bright note being Sel Murray winning the VFL Leading Goalkicker Medal in 1941 with 88 goals. By the late 1940s, North Melbourne had developed a strong list and significant supporter base. In 1949 North secured the VFL Minor Premiership, finishing top of the ladder at the end of the home-and-away season with 14 wins and 5 losses. They failed to make the Grand Final that year (eventually won by Essendon), but in 1950 they did reach the final, defeated by a more efficient Essendon. It was in this year that the club adopted the "Kangaroos" mascot.
  In February 1965, North Melbourne moved its playing and training base from the Arden Street Oval to Coburg Oval, signing a seven-year lease with the City of Coburg after initially negotiating long-term leases for up to 40 years. The club came to an arrangement to merge with the VFA's Coburg Football Club, whom it was displacing from the ground; fourteen Coburg committeemen joined the North Melbourne committee, but the merger was never completed after Coburg established a rival committee which remained loyal to the VFA. The lease at Coburg lasted only eight months; the Coburg council was hesitant to build a new grandstand without the security of a long-term lease, and neither party made the returns they expected, so it was terminated by mutual agreement in September 1965 and North Melbourne returned to the Arden Street Oval.
  Onfield, the 1950s and 1960s were lean years for North Melbourne, though the club did secure two consecutive Night Premierships in 1965 and 1966. Allen Aylett was a brilliant player in the late 1950s and early 1960s (and captain between 1961 and 1964), as was Noel Teasdale, who lost the Brownlow Medal on a countback in 1965 (he was later awarded a retrospective medal when the counting system was amended).
caption: North Melbourne and Arden St Oval after admission to the VFL. c. 1928
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