Football in Hartshead can be traced back as long ago as the 1930s when Hartshead Church had a very successful team in the Spen Valley League; winning the Division One title in both 1937-1938 and 1938-1939.

Hartshead FC (Saturday) was established in 1991 by Chris Foggin. The team played at Harsthead Recreation ground and was run out of Hartshead Working Mens Club on Prospect Road. Originally the team was called Hartshead Senior and they played in Division Two of the West Yorkshire Association League. Following the sad passing of Chris, the team was taken over by Mick Hanson as Manager.

In the early years, the club would go on to have a significant amount of success, winning the Division Two title in 2004/2005. The following season the team would go on to have a great season in Division One; only missing out on promotion to the Premier Division on the final day of the season. The team also reached the Heavy Woollen District FA's Wheatley Cup Final in the 2005/2006 season losing to Howden Clough on penalties following a 3-3 draw after extra time. During this successful period the team re-located to a pitch at Princess Mary Stadium, close to Cleckheaton.

The club continued to improve by adding a Reserve Team; playing in the West Yorkshire Association League with the highlight winning the Alliance Division Two title in 2006/2007. The club also achieved FA Charter Standard during these years, and set up a junior section.

In 2010 Hartshead saw a few juniors coming through from the junior section which hadn’t happened for a fair few years, which saw the junior manager take over the Reserve Team. 2009/2010 was a tough season for Hartshead with the juniors coming through and was disappointing for both teams finishing in the bottom half of the table. 2010/2011 was a tough one to swallow with management changing halfway through the season with Hartshead First Team getting relegated to division 2.

At the end of 2012/2013 Hartshead made the decision to fold the Reserve Team due to lack of player availability and to concentrate on getting the First Team back up to Division 1. The decision proved to be a wise one, with Hartshead getting promoted back to division 1 in 2014/2015. This was a very ambitious and young team who were striving to move forward, which they did by getting to the last 16 of the County Cup and winning the Wheatley Cup in 2015/2016. They also had a good first season in Division 1 by finishing in the top half of the table.

Along came the 2016/2017 season with a few positive additions to the squad. Hartshead were confident they could mount a promotion push which they did by finishing 2nd and getting promoted to the step 7 premier league for the first time in the club's history. The team also made the semi-final of the Wheatley Cup but lost out on penalties.
In the 2017/2018 season Hartshead were picking up the points they required at home but only managed to gain 6 points all season when playing away which unfortunately in a competitive league led to them being relegated to division 1 by missing the drop by 4 points.

Hartshead started to rebuild in the 2018/2019 season and were confident they could gain promotion but too many inconsistent performances along the season cost them promotion. The highlight of the season was getting to the Quarter Final of the County Cup for the first time in the club's history. Most viewers would say Hartshead had enough chances to win the game in 90 minutes but unfortunately, Hartshead lost out on penalties.
The club added to their management team in the 2019/2020 season and with a good preseason, Hartshead were quietly confident they could be in the mix for promotion again. The season ended early due to Covid-19 with the team still to play the semi-final of the Wheatley Cup and sitting 6th in the league with 10 games remaining. Who knows how the season would have ended leaving plenty to speculate.

Hartshead made the decision for the 2020/2021 season to merge with Gomersal & Cleckheaton FC to look forward to a brighter future with a well-established junior set up with fantastic facilities.