However, the roots of the club extend back a further thirty years to Friday 7 December 1888, when Durham City played their opening game on the New Cricket Ground.

Anyone who intended to become a member of the club was invited to join the kickaround at 2.15pm and the Rules of the Game could be obtained from J.D. Captain, according to an advert placed in the Durham County Advertiser.

Durham’s opening game of 1889/90 was against Sunderland Swifts on the City Ground and the newspaper reckoned that by then ‘the Association game seems to be taking hold in the city, as the membership of the club has more than doubled already.’ The side that took on Sunderland lined up: Durham City - Robson; Shields, A.N.Other; Chapman, Dawson, Stoddart; Weatherall, Wilson, Addison, Bell, Peart. The reserves were Hindle and Shotton.

Though details of the side a few and far between, in October 1890 Durham City were hammered 8-0 by Leadgate Park in the qualifying competition first round of the Durham Association Challenge Cup. Although the oval ball was certainly the stronger and longer established code in the town with the blue and gold strips of the Durham City Rugby Union side a popular draw, the surrounding coalfields and colliery villages contained some of the strongest amateur Association teams in the country.

That first incarnation of Durham City AFC was disbanded sometime between then and the formation of a new Durham City football club at a meeting in the Dun Cow Inn August 1893. It was pointed out that ‘some time ago one or two gentlemen conceived the idea of forming an Association Football Club in Durham City, this club to have no connection to the old City club, now defunct.’

The chairman Richard Weatherall had been a player at the former club and in front of a large attendance said that the committee had tried to secure pitches at the Cricket Club, on the Racecourse, the University, and had finally settled on a pitch at the Garden House Field on North Road – formerly played on by Henderson’s Creelers Football Club. The club felt that if they did well then they could add a running and cycling track with the pitch in the centre. A Mr. Stabler suggested that the pitch be known as the Newcastle Road ground, which, after some laughter, was adopted.

The City colours were blue and white (white shirts and blue trousers) and other officials were Charles Bulmer (secretary), Mr. Laws (treasurer), Mr. McNeil (captain), George Simpson (vice-captain), and Mr. Stabler, Simpson, R. Pennington and Gilliland made up the committee. They asked the MP John Lloyd Wharton to be president.

In one of their earliest games the following month, City travelled to play Godfrey (Newcastle) at Heaton and were unlucky to beaten 2-0 in wintry weather. The side was: Durham City - McDonald; McNeil (capt.), Coventry; Simpson, Matt, Wilkinson; Gilliand, Herring, Houston, Welch, Bradford.

City held a quarterly general meeting at Lockhart’s Rooms on North Road in February 1894 with all members requested to attend. They seemingly vanished again after that and didn’t turn up again until December 1918 when they joined the Northern Victory League with Newcastle United, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool, Scotswood and South Shields as football looked to get going again after the devastation of the conflict in Europe. Their first game was scheduled to be at home to Sunderland on 11 January 1919

The new Durham City were in financial difficulties as early as January 1920. They were paying out £30 a week in player’s wages, £285 to rent the pavilion and had started the season in the North-Eastern League with just £6 in hand. They were taking in £88 average in gate money and the chairman Mr. Sowerby did not think they would become defunct and City joined the Football League Third Division (North) in 1921.

City director and solicitor William McKeag suggested that the Dean of Durham, Bishop Wellden, should be invited onto the board at the club after he’d written a letter in the press in 1925 complaining about the need for clean football and players being bribed.

That wasn’t the first time that the Church had had their say about the game in Durham – in 1891 the Bishop of Durham intervened when the Young Men’s Church of England Association FC arranged a match with Westoe and he complained that he ‘was disturbed by the affair and would do everything in his power to have the match cancelled.’ The Durham City ground was at Kepier at that time because it wasn’t available for the game.

City were facing serious financial troubles again in November 1927 and following a meeting of officials with the League at Blackpool, it was decided to keep the club going. When they were forced to apply for re-Election to the League in May 1928 they cited the fact that they’d finished three points above basement side Nelson, were founder members of the Northern Section, and had produced several first-class players such as Camsell (Middlesbrough), Hill (Burnley), Andrews (Sunderland), Davison and Crooks (Derby County), Elliott (Chelsea) and Dene at Huddersfield.

The club reckoned that they were one of the most economically managed in the country and felt that ‘there were definite signs of an improvement in the local industrial outlook, and that public support may be increased,’ but were booted out and Carlisle United took their place.

Just a couple of moths later they were caught up in the Durham FA amateur payments scandal that saw hundreds of suspensions for players that had been paid expenses above those allowed in the rules as ‘boot money.’ City were so infuriated that they pitched to leave the FA and set up their own Association in Durham.

Although they limped on back in the North-Eastern League, a special meeting of Durham City FC was held in May 1929 to consider the question of winding up the limited liability company. The club was formally wound up the following month after an extraordinary general meeting of the shareholders, with less than a dozen in attendance. The reason given was that the company could not continue its business by reason of its liabilities.

Durham City are a Wearside League club today.

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