Professional Northern Virginia FC was founded in 1998 and joined the USISL D-3 Pro League as an expansion franchise in 1998, entering the team under the name Northern Virginia Royals. They ended their first season in 7th place in the Atlantic Division with a 5–12–1 record. In their second season, they improved, winning 10 of their 18 regular season games, finishing fourth in the Atlantic Division and also qualified for their first
US Open Cup campaign in 1999, where they were upset in the first round by Florida
PDL side
Cocoa Expos 5–3. In the playoffs they beat divisional rivals
South Carolina Shamrocks 2–1 in the first round before falling 4–0 to Charlotte in the conference semi-final. The 1998 season and the Royals were featured in the book "Unlucky: A Season of Struggle in Minor League Professional Soccer" by Dave Ungrady, who trained and played briefly for the Royals as well The D-3 Pro League became the USL Pro Select League in 2003, and the Royals finished bottom of the 3-team Southern Division, with just 6 wins for the year. The USL Pro Select League became the USL Second Division in 2005, and dispensed with divisions in favor of a single-table format; for the Royals, this proved to be yet another disastrous season.
Move to PDL After finishing bottom of the league in the USL Second Division, the Royals management took the decision to self-relegate themselves to the
USL Premier Development League for the 2006 season. The Royals won their first match in the amateur PDL 3–1 over
West Virginia Chaos, ultimately finishing fourth in the Mid Atlantic Division in their debut 2006 season. The Northern Virginia Royals were inducted into the USL Soccer Hall of Fame in 2007.
Evergreen Hammers After the 2015 season, the Royals transferred their operations and relocated to Loudon County, Virginia in 2016 playing under the Evergreen FC banner as the Evergreen Hammers.
Northern Virginia FC For the 2021 season, Evergreen which was already part of the Northern Virginia FC club, renamed the
USL League Two club to sit under the NoVa FC banner. NoVa FC had already operated teams under that name in the lower level
United Premier Soccer League and
American Premier Soccer League. On 27 August 2021, NoVa FC announced they would be reviving the women's program with a new side in the
USL W League beginning in 2022. == Year-by-year ==