Whether it's bellowed out in the stands after a premiership, or in the rooms after a hard-earned win, our song has been an iconic and treasured part of North Melbourne's identity throughout the club's long history.

As we celebrate our 100th year in the VFL/AFL, I investigated the biggest discussion point relating to the song: which is its 'true' last line?

There have been different versions over the last century.

As we all celebrated our wonderful AFLW team winning the premiership in 2024, the club’s catch cry was 'Just you wait and see', as a tribute to the current version sung by our winning teams. 

In full, that version of the song concludes with:

North Melbourne will be Premiers, just you wait and see.

This is where the confusion starts, as on the club’s website and the audio played over the loudspeakers at the games, the last line ends with:

North Melbourne is the team that plays, to win for you and me.

Going back through our archives, I found there have been numerous iterations of the last line in official club publications.

The first documented listing of the club song I found was for a club function called a 'Complimentary Dinner' at Bay View Hotel, South Kensington on Saturday, May 28, 1927.

The run sheet of the evening included a 'Musical item' which reads as follows:

Join in the chorus, and sing it one and all,
Join in the chorus, North Melbourne’s on the ball.
Good old North Melbourne, they’re champions you’ll agree.
North Melbourne will be Premiers, just you wait and see.

The first time I could find where the last line had differed was for a function called 'Kia-Ora Sports Parade', which was held at Brunswick Town Hall on Friday, 4th July 1952, where the two lines of last verse was changed to:

Good old North Melbourne, let’s give them a cheer,
'Cause we’re the team that’s going to be Premiers this year.

In the club’s 1964 Annual Report, the team song is printed on the back, and the last two lines were again changed:

Good old North Melbourne, they’re champions you’ll agree.
North Melbourne is the team that plays to win for you and me.

In the 1969 Annual Report, the team song is printed on the back, and the last two lines returned to being more aspirational, with reference to making the finals (noting that that the finals comprised of the top four teams at the end of the home and away season):

Good old North Melbourne, we’re Champions by the score.
North Melbourne will be striving onwards to the four.

The following year, in the 1970 Annual Report, the last line was again changed, perhaps taking advantage of 'seventy' rhyming with 'agree' to return to something closer to the theme of the original:

Good old North Melbourne, they’re champions you’ll agree.
North Melbourne will be Premiers in 1970.

Then, in 1972, the VFL commissioned the musical group 'The Fable Singers' to record each club’s theme song. This recording, which is used to this day at our games, used the 1964 version for the last verse:

Good old North Melbourne, they’re champions you’ll agree.
North Melbourne is the team that plays to win for you and me.

But at the club, throughout the subsequent 1970s, '80s and '90s, the last line would just change to whatever year it was, regardless of whether it rhymed with the penultimate line. In the 1995 Player and Officials Yearbook, the last line simply reads: 

North Melbourne will be Premiers in 1995.

When the club changed our name to 'Kangaroos' in the late 1990s, it was decided to also change the last verse of the song:

Good old Kangas, they’re champions you’ll agree.
The Kangaroos will be Premiers, just you wait and see.

At the time, this caused a lot of consternation for many supporters. Whenever the song was played at a game, the supporters would always use the words 'North Melbourne', and when the club officially changed our name back to North Melbourne in 2007, the song reverted back as well:

Good old North Melbourne, they’re champions you’ll agree.
North Melbourne is the team that plays to win for you and me.

This version has become much-loved by our fans and will continue to be played at the venues around the country. 

Meanwhile, the players will continue to sing the full version that was written down all those years ago back in 1927:

Hearts to hearts and hands to hands,
Beneath the blue and white we stand.
We shout, God bless our native land,
North Melbourne, North Melbourne.

Out we come, out we come, out we come to play,
Just for recreation’s sake, to pass the time away.
Lots of fun, heaps of fun, enjoy yourselves today.
North Melbourne boys/girls are hard to beat when they come out to play.

So join in the chorus, and sing it one and all,
Join in the chorus, North Melbourne’s on the ball.
Good old North Melbourne, they’re champions you’ll agree.
North Melbourne will be Premiers, just you wait and see.

As for which is the 'true' version?

Well, 'just you wait and see' appears to be the original. But perhaps both can be true. 

>> A LEGACY EVERLASTING Help celebrate our centenary in the VFL/AFL