A notice of a meeting of a proposed Walkerville Football Club to be held on the 19th April 1876, appears in the local press of that year, and there is a record of a Walkerville club playing at Gilberton in 1883.

The present club was founded in 1901 and players wore red and white Guernseys and played in the parklands opposite the Buckingham Arms Hotel on an oval to the north-west of that used by the North Adelaide Lacrosse club.

At the beginning of the 1911 season, after recruiting many players from the ailing Walkerville Methodist club, the Club moved to its present site, then known as “Pockers Paddock”, an area not really as bad as the name sounds, but purely an identification of past Real Estate entitlement. Despite its rather exclusive address, the team of 1911 used an old horse tram as changing rooms until more permanent rooms could be built. In 1912 Walkerville United went through the season undefeated and had the cheek to challenge the SANFL premiers, the mighty West Adelaide, to a match. Of course the match was never played.

In 1921 the North Adelaide District Association was formed with Walkerville as a founding member, and the club won 3 of the first 5 premierships and added to that glory by winning a few more premierships. It remained with that NADA for the next 15 years until it joined the South Australian Amateur Football League in 1936.

In 1936, SAAFL was made up of 20 teams split into 2 grades. Walkerville coming into A2 and finishing the minor round with only one lost in 18 games. The club won the first final against Alberton United 17.13 to 10.5 before winning the Grand Final the following week against Eastwood, 13.9 to 10.6 at Prospect Oval with coach Bill Knuckey dominating at Centre Half Back. That year also Walkerville player, Sid Maley created a new Amateur League record by kicking 155 goals for the season, a record that stood until 2006 when broken by a player in A10B who kicked 167 goals.

In 1950 and 1953 Walkerville won the A1 premiership in a most successful time of the clubs fortunes. In the first final of 1950, Walkerville accounted for Woodville 10.24 to 7.12 but had to wait 2 weeks to play the grand final as the other semi final between University and Exeter ended in a draw. In the grand final at Thebarton Oval, Exeter came out of the blocks to kick 4 goals to one but gradually and keeping the visitors scoreless in the last quarter, Walkerville won its first A1 premiership 5.12 to 6.3. Rover and future North Adelaide secretary Ross Young starred for Walkerville ably assisted by Fred Trickett and Norm Ferguson.

In 1953, Walkerville finished the minor round in second position and in the first final accounted for SPOC, 10.16 to 10.6. They then won the “Grand Final” against Exeter at Glenelg Oval, 7.11 to 7.7. Due to the then rules, minor premier University then Challenged Walkerville for the Premiership, University were beaten in the first final by Exeter, 10.12 to 8.11. The Challenge Grand Final was held at Alberton Oval and Walkerville handled the strong wind better and with centreman Ron Saul and half forward Claude Jarratt on top and with Brian Perkins playing well in the ruck, they overcome University 8.10 to 7.8.

The club changed its colours in 1955 from Chocolate and Blue (original state colours) to royal blue and white. This must of changed the Club’s luck however because only twice thereafter did it compete in A1 finals. The turbulent late 50’s and 60’s saw ups and downs and Walkerville were not going so well, the district was old and the inability to attract top footballers saw a period of relegation and promotion between A1 and A2 during that time.

In 1969 the building of the new clubrooms injected enthusiasm and this carried over into the 70’s, although the club could not break its A.Grade premiership hoodoo and lost Grand Finals in 1969, 1972 & 1976. In 1978 the Club used Park 11 (Graduates Oval) as Walkerville Oval went through a complete maintenance.

In mid 1978, The North Adelaide Reserves Football Club formerly Thompson Memorial Football Club, after many successful years, saw the need to survive with its assets and ability and saw no future in the Association it was in. The Walkerville Football Club in their wisdom sought to combine fine football prowess, success and excellent clubroom facilities in an amalgamation which was completed in time for the 1979 season.

Walkerville demonstrated the strength gained by the amalgamation by losing only one minor round game. It beat West Croydon in the second semi final, 24.13 to 15.12 and then recorded their first A.Grade premiership in 26 years by again beating West Croydon in the Grand Final 23.12 to 11.9.

The forward lines were fantastic with Snake Anderson kicking 6 goals,  Aussie Ausserlechner & Bob Morcom 4 goals each and with 3 goals each to Al Sim and Dave Kelly. Lindsay Miller did well in the ruck with help from on-baller Brenton St. Clair. The defence of Maris Lagzdins, Subba Elliott, Errol Smith & Bob Simmonds repeatedly proved impenetrable in what was to be a magnificent team effort.

The B.Grade made it a double by beating PAOC in the Grand Final 9.18 to 5.7 and going through the season undefeated and starting a run of 6 premierships in 7 years.

Walkerville joined the South Australian Football Association (SAFA) in 1980 but was beaten in 3 grand finals in the first 4 years of playing Grade 2. Promoted to Grade 1 in 1984 it performed serviceably without ever setting the league on fire.

In 1990 Walkerville, with Norwood Districts rejoined SAAFL in the A6 competition that was several grades below its proper grading but due to a number of clubs returning to SAAFL from SAFA, a lot of clubs wanted retribution and this unfortunately transpired. Walkerville played Norwood Districts/ Hectorville in the following 3 Grand Finals from A6 to A4, with Walkerville winning in 1990 and 1992 but losing in 1991 and with the B.Grade winning 5 premierships in 6 years.

In 1990, The Grand Final at Kilburn turned out to be very lopsided, with Walkerville very committed and Norwood Districts very undisciplined. After a close first quarter, the Centre square players, Stephen Window, Darren Saul and Phil Cleary started to dominate all clearances and with Justin Heinicke marshalling the defence Walkerville steamed away to win by 84 points, 24-15 to 11.9. Rob Draper kicked 5 goals, Anthony Elliott & Darren Saul 4 goals apiece.

After losing the 1991 Grand Final by 9 points, 1992 was also not looking promising. Trailing by 9 points at ¾ time and kicking into a very stiff breeze, the odds were against Walkerville but a magnificent last quarter by Coach, Peter Window who time after time sent Walkerville into attack with his dashing runs and kicking to dual forwards Brett Smid and Jamie Sullivan, who both ended the match with 3 goals apiece , Walkerville ended up winning by a bare 2 points, 13-4 to Hectorville’s 12-8 in a fantastic come from behind victory. Other better players were centreman Darryl Newton and defender Robbie Catalano.

Of course we can not go pass the B. Grade 1995 Grand Final against Rostrevor O.C. at Norwood Oval. Trailing 5-6 to 13-3 at ¾ time the match appeared over but in a match that had to be seen to be believed, Walkerville stormed back into contention with great contributions from Greg Forrest, Chris Town and Jamie Williams. Walkerville fought back to trail by only 2 points with seconds to go and with the ball in Walkerville’s forward line when all of a sudden the ball was in Anthony Brown’s hands and with a scorching pass to full forward Brett Smid who took the mark. As he went back to the mark the siren sounded with Brett facing a 40 metre kick on a 45 degree angle. Brett coolly went back and as soon as the ball left his boot he was cheering as he knew that it was never going to miss and Walkerville got home by 4 points, 13-8 to 13-4 in a truly remarkable win.

In 1999 and 2003, Walkerville won A. Grade premierships in A3 but have struggled in A2 and promptly been up and down between the 2 grades.

After losing a spiteful 1993 Grand Final to Greenacres, Walkerville had a chance at redemption in 1999. In a very hard fought game at Daly Oval, Walkerville caused the boilover of the season to beat the odds on favourite Greenacres 10-14 to 6-11. Brett Smid was magnificent at full forward to kick 7 goals, After getting knocked out before a ball was bounced in 1993, rover Gary Cock played a fantastic game to make up for that disappointment, other best players were ruckmen, Scott Petherick and defenders David Mudge and Paul Kemp.

The 2003 Grand Final at Prospect against SPOC and was a tight affair all day with Walkerville only breaking free in the last quarter. Stuart Callary, Simon Laube and Paul Chapman in the middle fought hard all day the be amongst the best, but were well supported by forwards Bret Smid (4 goals), Tim Allen & Nathan Pietsch  (3 goals each) and Centre Half Forward Peter Mudge.

Walkerville is now looking at consolidating its position in Amateur League. One way of doing that has already been accomplished, with the Clubrooms undergoing extensive renovations, commencing on 13th April 2004 and finishing in early December 2004 financed by the Walkerville Council and the Walkerville Sports Club. We are the envy of every amateur sporting club in metropolitan Adelaide with our sporting and bar facilities.

The 2009 season was another attempt to escape A3 and after a very good recruiting period we started to loose players to long term injury’s, such as Steve Hunter, Matthew Menz, Simon Laube and Josh Gould. After losing the Qualifying final at Walkerville oval, we needed to win 3 games to take the premiership, we proceeded to beat Old Ignatians and then SMOSH - West Lakes to have a grand final face off with our neighbours and arch-rivals again, St Peters OC.

On a very hot and windy day at Richmond Oval, Walkerville were the underdogs against a very good SPOC side. The match see sawed all day with both sides at times wilting in the heat and the big oval and with the lead changing numerous times. The momentum change was when we kicked the last 3 goals in time-on of the 3rd quarter to hit the front. The last quarter was nerve racking as each side tried to win but then Walkerville started to hit their straps and to finally break free of our opponents to win a great premiership 17-16 118 to SPOC 14-4 88. Leading goalkickers were Shem Balshaw with 4 and 2 each to Adam Law, Geoff Munn, Sam Priest and Wade Ryan. Best Players were Sam Priest who did a great job in ruck after taking over from the injured Daniel Stringer. Adam Davis played well in defence, Trent Hill who had a sparkling 2nd half of the year, was again superb on the wing and the 2 magicians in the forward Line, Shem Balshaw and Wade Ryan were excellent and magical.

2010 brings another quest to succeed in A2 against some very good teams, Athelstone
Adelaide University, Eastern Park, Flinders Park, Modbury, Pembroke OS, PHOS Camden,
Rostrevor OC and St Peters OC.