A suburban Melbourne football club is celebrating 100 years of survival in a city that has always favoured Aussie Rules.

The Moreland City Football Club in Melbourne's north dates back to 1916 when it was known as Coburg.

Like most Australian football clubs in the early 1900s, Coburg struggled with dwindling numbers and in 1934 it merged with two other clubs under the new name of Moreland.

Waves of European migrants in the 1950s and '60s helped establish the sport, but players from the era remember the constant battle for exposure.

"Soccer was very much a small sport, it was looked down upon," said former Moreland player Ted Smith.

"I was looked at as a bit of a traitor for playing this 'wog game'."

1956 Olympics a 'tragic' missed opportunity for the sport

Ted Smith (second row, third from right) was one of two Moreland players in the 1956 Australian Olympic football team. ( Supplied )

The 80-year-old veteran was one of two Moreland players who helped form the Australian football team for the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games.

Mr Smith remembered it as the first time football was respected on par with other sports.

"The team was there as an equal with all other sports. In the [Olympic] village and in the lunchroom, everyone was the same," he said.

"But we missed an opportunity to push the game forward."

That opportunity was in the quarter-finals, when Australia was pitted against India — a team considered easy to beat, whose players were sometimes barefooted.

"We had played India in a friendly game and we were overconfident we could beat them," Mr Smith said.

The team's confidence cost them greatly.

Australia lost and India went on to the semi-finals, while the sport went back to being in the shadow of Aussie Rules for decades more.

"The real tragedy is if we had been in an Olympic semi-final, what that would have done for the game would have been enormous," Mr Smith said.

"The space was open, there for the game to advance."

Former Moreland player Ted Smith and new recruit Apai Ukono say the club's future is bright in Victoria. ( ABC Local: Clare Rawlinson )

Current Moreland City Football Club president Maurice Bisetto said the future of football in Australia was brighter nowadays, despite being at a disadvantage in Melbourne — a city still dominated by AFL.

"It's exciting times," he said.

"Women's football is the fastest growing sport globally ... and all of Australia is embracing the game.

"Since Australia qualified for the World Cup in 2006 that was a major impetus for the sport's growth."

The Moreland club is thriving and recently signed two Welsh players as well as former Brisbane Strikers player Apai Ukono.

The club will mark its 100-year history at a gala event today.