Salford RLFC is a semi-professional rugby league club in Salford, England, who play home games at the CorpAcq Stadium in Barton upon Irwell. They are the phoenix club of the original Salford Red Devils who were liquidated in 2025.
They have won the League Championship six times and Challenge Cup once. The club's traditional home colours are red, white and blue.
They have rivalries with Swinton Lions, Leigh Leopards, Oldham and Rochdale Hornets.
History Early years The club was founded in 1873 by the boys of the Cavendish Street Chapel in Hulme, Manchester. Using a local field, the boys organised matches amongst themselves before moving to nearby Moss Side. In an attempt to recruit new members, the link with the school was broken in 1875 and the name Cavendish Football Club was adopted. They moved to a new base on the Salford side of the River Irwell at Throstle Nest Weir in Ordsall. Two seasons later, they moved again to the west side of Trafford Road to a ground known as the Mile Field where they spent the 1877–78 season. Their next home was a field north of the former Manchester Racecourse, New Barnes. Their first season there, 1878–79, was the last to be played under the Cavendish name. Cavendish became Salford Football Club in 1879. The first match as Salford was at Dewsbury on 4 October 1879. The following week heralded the first home match at New Barnes against Widnes, on 11 October 1879. The result was a draw with one try each.
Salford struggled to attract support as there were few local players in the team. In 1881, they almost disbanded but instead merged with the Crescent Football Club. This placed Salford firmly on the rugby map, it was an exciting period and, during the remaining 15 years as members of the Rugby Football Union, seventeen Salford players were selected for Lancashire, three by the North of England and two, Harry Eagles and Tom Kent, for England. Since the 1881 merger, only 62 matches were lost from 263 played in the remaining nine years of the decade. In 1889, Salford moved their headquarters to the nearby London and North Western Hotel on Cross Lane. Salford switched from their traditional amber, black and scarlet hoops to red jerseys. The club became the first side to win the Lancashire League in 1892–93. Salford along with Leigh and Wigan, were suspended for professionalism by the Rugby Football Union in 1895, and placed joint bottom of the Lancashire league. With automatic promotion and relegation, they faced dropping down a division, and potential financial ruin. That same year, the leading Lancashire and Yorkshire clubs formed the breakaway Northern Union, Salford initially remained loyal to the Rugby Football Union but in April 1896 Salford held a special meeting to discuss joining the new organisation. Only three members opposed the motion.
Salford were admitted to the Northern Union on 2 June 1896. Their first competitive Northern Union match was on Saturday, 5 September 1896, with a visit to Widnes. The Reds, competing in the Lancashire Senior Competition, lost 10–0, and only three matches were won in the League that season. Their form improved and they finished third place in 1898–99. In 1900, Salford met old local rivals, Swinton, in the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final at Fallowfield, Manchester. After a keenly fought contest, the result was a 16–8 win for Swinton.
20th century In 1900, Salford received notice to vacate New Barnes as the Manchester Ship Canal Company had purchased the land. Salford agreed a 14-year lease on of land belonging to the Willows Estate Company, named after the abundance of willow trees in the area. Salford made their début at the Willows on 21 December 1901, beating Swinton 2–0, the official attendance reaching 16,981. James Lomas became rugby league's first £100 transfer, from Bramley to Salford in 1901.
The club continued making progress in the Rugby League Challenge Cup, reaching the semi-final stages in 1902, 1903, 1906, 1907 and 1910. On three occasions, they succeeded in reaching the final, but lost 0–25 to Broughton Rangers in 1902, 0–7 to Halifax in 1903 and 0–5 to Bradford in 1906. The Championship also proved elusive, the Reds finishing runners-up for three consecutive seasons from 1901 to 1904. In the last of those, Salford and Bradford finished level on points with Salford having the superior scoring record. Despite that, the Reds had to take part in a deciding match at Halifax, which they lost 5–0.
The Kiwis, then known as the All Golds, visited in 1907, and Salford played them on 28 December, losing 9–2 in front of a reported 9,000 spectators. Lance Todd, who was to have such an influence at the Willows 20 years later, was in the New Zealanders' side. A year later, the Australians stopped off at the Willows on 17 October. The result was a 9–9 draw. Salford won the Rugby Football League Championship in 1913–14. The club had financial problems and was in the hands of the official receiver but somehow in the Championship final, beat Huddersfield's "Team of All Talents" 5–3 on 25 April 1914, this was the club's first major honour. In August 1914, the Salford Football Club Company was finally wound up and a new company, Salford Football Club (1914) Limited was formed. During the First World War, Salford continued to function, but it was a struggle. Thirty-two Salford players volunteered for the war, of which seven were killed. The 1920s was an era of survival, on and off the field, the team opening the decade with their worst ever league placing, finishing last in 1920–21. There was a dramatic change of fortune during the summer of 1928 when Lance Todd became team manager. In his first season in charge (1928–29), "Toddy's Toddlers" went from 26th to fourth place in the table with virtually the same set of players.
Gus Risman was talent-spotted by Lance Todd, when he was 17 years old. He made his début for Salford on 31 August 1929. Other legendary names included Alan Edwards, Jack Feetham, Barney Hudson, Emlyn Jenkins, Billy Watkins and Billy Williams. Salford were considered the leading club in the game during the 1930s, winning three League Championships, five Lancashire League Championships, four Lancashire Cups and the Rugby League Challenge Cup. Salford won the Lancashire Cup for the first time in 1931 by beating Swinton 10–8 at the Cliff in front of a crowd of 26,471. Having been runners-up in the same competition in 1929 it was their first trophy for 17 years. Salford captured the Rugby League Championship in 1933 by beating Swinton 15–5 in the final at Central Park, Wigan. Salford were the first club to be invited to tour France who saw them as the premier side in the game. Their trip in October and November 1934 was to promote rugby league in the country. They won all six matches in spectacular fashion and were given their unofficial nickname; Les Diables Rouges (The Red Devils) by French journalists. The opening game was in Paris on Sunday 21 October, following an overnight ferry journey, having beaten Wigan 21–12 in the Lancashire Cup final the previous afternoon.
Salford turned its attention to baseball during the summer of 1935 as members of the National Baseball League. Matches were staged at the Willows. Several of Salford's players took part including Gus Risman. The team was called the Salford Reds. In 1936, for a third consecutive year, Salford won the Lancashire Cup, defeating Wigan 5–2 at Wilderspool, Warrington. Salford's highest attendance was set on 13 February 1937 when 26,470 turned up to watch Salford versus Warrington in the first round of the Rugby League Challenge Cup. The 1937 Australian touring team was beaten by Salford 11–8 at the Willows. Despite heavy rain that created muddy playing conditions, 12,000 attended. Salford beat Barrow 7–4 in the final of the 1938 Challenge Cup at Wembley, the club's first-ever win. A famous photograph was taken of Gus Risman and the cup being carried shoulder-high round the stadium by his teammates with him being the only one without a cigarette in his hand. In 1939, Salford became the first rugby league club to make successive visits to Wembley but were well beaten 20–3 by Halifax. On 3 September 1939, the Second World War began and the 1939–40 season was abandoned. A wartime Emergency League was organised but, at the beginning of January 1941, Salford decided to cease playing, due to poor gates. In November 1942, Lance Todd was killed in a car crash.
Post-war On 25 August 1945, Salford played their first match after the war against Castleford, winning 10–0 at the Willows. Hundreds of supporters gave up their summer weekends to help put the derelict looking ground back into good order. In 1946, Salford appeared to be on their way to a third consecutive peacetime final, but Salford lost, unexpectedly, at home to Hunslet (15–8) at the quarter-final stage. In the second post-war season, 1946–47, Salford slid to twenty-second, a dramatic climb followed and the team finished seventh in 1948–49, and fifth in 1949–50. But it was a false dawn and the team fell into mid-table obscurity during the 1950s. In 1950, Salford finished fifth on scoring difference to miss out on a top-4 play-off spot but it was their highest post-war finish until 1973–74. Salford lost 4–8 to Warrington in a third-round Challenge Cup tie on 17 March 1951 at the Willows. The crowd was reported in the press as 28,000, the upper limit that had been set for the match. If correct it would be a ground record, but no official figure survives to confirm the exact attendance.
Salford won a four-team summer competition at Stanley Park in Blackpool 1952. Staged as part of Blackpool Corporation's Festival of Sport Fortnight, the Reds eliminated Barrow in the semi-final and then defeated Doncaster 26–7 in the final. When Gus Risman quit as a player in 1954, he coached Salford for four years, before moving temporarily to Phoenix, Arizona (USA) to care for his nephew who had recently been involved in a dog mauling incident. Saturday 26 November 1955 saw television cameras at the Willows for the first time when the second half of the match against New Zealand was broadcast live on BBC Grandstand. Salford hosted their first floodlit game, using Manchester United's ground on Wednesday 5 November 1958 against Leeds in a match postponed from October. Leeds won 22–17.
A proposal in 1960 to create a Manchester rugby league club at the former White City Stadium on Chester Road received strong opposition from Salford and Swinton. Their protests were renewed when a match was staged there between a Manchester XIII, drawn from both Salford and Swinton and the New Zealand tourists in September 1961 and the idea was subsequently dropped. Gus Risman returned to Salford as team manager in February 1962. Between March and September 1962, Salford hit an all-time low with 19 consecutive defeats. Covering two seasons, it is the worst run in the club's history. Salford also suffered what was then their largest margin of defeat, when they lost 59–0 at St. Helens.
Brian Snape era Brian Snape succeeded Jim Hammond as chairman in September 1963. Snape appointed Griff Jenkins as secretary-coach in 1964, and the Reds immediately started to climb the league ladder. Salford built a variety club in 1966 in a bid to attract couples and parties to attend rugby matches. Between 1967 and 1972, Salford averaged over 7,000 spectators at a time when the league average was slipping below 2,000. In June 1967 the Willows switched on its floodlights for the first time in the match with Widnes on Friday 11 March 1966. From that evening, Friday night was rugby league night as the fans flocked to the Willows. In October 1967 David Watkins joined Salford for £15,000, a then club record. Watkins scored in 92 consecutive matches for Salford from 19 August 1972 to 25 April 1974. He totalled 929 points from 41 tries and 403 goals.