San Francisco City Football Club was founded in 2001 by Jonathan Wright. The club entered the
San Francisco Soccer Football League beginning with the 2002 season. After a decade in the competition, the club won back-to-back promotions to reach the SFSFL Premier Division in 2012. On the heels of the club's SFSFL success, and with enthusiasm for soccer mounting in the buildup to the
2014 FIFA World Cup, former SF City player and current club president Jacques Pelham began discussions with members of the San Francisco Football Supporters Association and the San Francisco chapter of
The American Outlaws about building a grassroots, supporter-owned professional soccer club in the city. The club began offering membership in August 2014, but a bid to join the
National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) for the spring 2015 campaign was blocked by
San Francisco Stompers FC, who claimed territorial exclusivity in the league. SF City filed a grievance with US Soccer contesting the Stompers' claim. An independent arbiter eventually sided with SF City, but by the time the decision was made the club had already agreed to join
US Club Soccer's NorCal Premier Soccer League. In early 2015, with administration staff in place and membership on the rise, SF City approached dominant NorCal Premier Soccer League side Ticket Arsenal FC about merging its on-pitch talent, which included many former NCAA
Division 1 players and some former
Major League Soccer prospects, with SF City's organizational and supporter infrastructure. The merger was executed on the eve of the semifinal of the regional US Open Cup qualifying tournament. The new-look SF City went on to qualify for the opening round of the US Open Cup. They became the first team from San Francisco to qualify for the competition since the 2007
California Victory, and the first amateur San Francisco side to do so since the reintroduction of professional clubs to the tournament in 1995. The April 25 play-in match between SF City and
Cal FC set a US Open Cup preliminary round attendance record, with 1,519 spectators in the stands of the newly refurbished Kezar Stadium. At the start of the 2016 season, SF City made their debut in the USL's Premier Development League. The club won six and drew two of their fourteen matches in that inaugural season, finishing third in the five-team Central Pacific Division. For 2017, the club realigned to the Southwest Division. Eight wins and one draw put SF City in third place out of nine teams, just missing qualification for the playoffs. In 2018, the team entered their second US Open Cup following their strong showing the previous season. At
Raimondi Park in Oakland, SF City defeated
CD Aguiluchos 4–0 to advance to the second round, where they fell to the
USL Championship's
Sacramento Republic. The PDL season was uneven, as the team finished sixth in the tightly contested Southwest. In 2019, the PDL was renamed
USL League Two and the Southwest Division shrank to eight teams. SF City finished in sixth place for the second consecutive season. SF City, in conjunction with the rest of the division, canceled their 2020 season due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. The club instead supported charitable causes online. In 2021, the League Two campaign was again called off, leading the club to call greater attention to their team in the
SFSFL. That team won ten of their eleven matches to finish atop the Majors Division and earn promotion to the Premier Division in 2022. While the senior team struggled in their first season after quarantine, they have improved by at least four points in every season since. In 2023, the club announced a kit sponsorship with the
San Francisco Municipal Railway, the city's
public transit operator. ==Year-by-year==