North Ballarat Football & Netball Club, nicknamed the Roosters, is an Australian rules football and netball club based at Mars Stadium in Ballarat.
The club currently fields senior, reserve and Under 19 sides in the Ballarat Football League. Between 1996 and 2017, North Ballarat competed in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
The club was established in 1882, playing in a number of regional competitions before entering Ballarat's "B" grade league as 'North City Football Club' in 1946 where it won its first premiership. In 1952 the club was admitted to the Ballarat Football League (BFL) as 'Ballarat North City' making its first Grand Final appearance in 1959. In 1960 the club played as 'North City – Wendouree' and was renamed 'North Ballarat Football Club' in 1961. The club won its first BFL Premiership (by two points) on its second Grand Final appearance in 1963 against Ballarat Football Club. The 1970s heralded the start of a golden era for the club. In the 27-year period from 1970 until 1996 the club claimed a further 14 BFL Premierships in the period spanning the 1970–1995 seasons (of which they claimed five between 1990–95). The latter feat was no doubt what prompted an invitation to join the re-constructed Victorian Football League (VFL) for the 1996 season.
The team had two unsuccessful VFL Grand Final attempts in 1999 and 2000, and won the 2008 VFL Premiership defeating the Port Melbourne Football Club. In 2009 and 2010 they gained back-to-back Premierships defeating the Northern Bullants at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne on both occasions.
The VFL competition has changed significantly since 1996 with ten of the fourteen teams in the present day VFL competition being aligned to (or the full Reserve listed teams of) much larger AFL clubs. The North Ballarat Roosters separated their association with the North Melbourne Football Club at the end of the 2015 season and struggled to transition as a stand-alone team against the AFL backed teams. At the end of the 2017 season, AFL Victoria revoked North Ballarat's VFL licence due to difficulties in the club's governance and on-field performance, citing difficulties at board level and the club's divided attention between its VFL team and its North Ballarat City BFL team, ending the club's stint in the VFL after 22 seasons.
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. There are also many players past and present who have played Australian football at its highest level.