The Salford City Reds are one of the Uk's leading professional rugby league clubs. Unfortunately they were relegated from the Super League in 2007, however they have vowed that they will be back in the future. The Salford City Reds are the original "Red Devils", this name was later copied by Manchester United soccer club, and for this reason fans are proud to refer to them as the "Original Red Devils". The name originally comes from a term that was applied to the team when they played in France, the French press labelled them as "Les Diables Rouges" and the name was born. They are sponsored by the Trafford Centre, one of the UK's largest shopping centres. Salford City Reds are getting ready to move to a brand new purpose build 20,000 capacity stadium in Barton-upon-Irwell in Eccles in early 2009. This will be one of the few modern stadiums that contains terracing for fans that prefer to stand.

The club traces its roots back to 1873 when it was initially founded by the boys of the Cavendish Street in Manchester. The boys would organise many matches amongst themselves before they moved to Moss Side to allow for bigger, more organised games. In 1875 they adopted the name Cavendish Football Club and began to look for members outside the original school, they moved again to a new ground near the River Irwell and then moved again to a field near New Barnes. They played their first genuine season in 1878-1879 as the Cavendish name before changing to become Salford Football Club after the season concluded. At first the side had a very hard time attracting support from local residents as there were hardly any local players in the team. In 1881 they merged with the Crescent Football Club which placed Salford firmly on the rugby map. The team only lost 62 games from 263 played in the end of the 1800's. When many Yorkshire and Lancashire clubs formed the Northern Union in response to pay disputes Salford remained loyal to the original Rugby Football Union for quite some time. In time Salford also came to join the Northern Union in 1896.

Salford made their debut at a new ground (The Willows) in 1901 and beat Swinton 2-0 with the attendance reaching a record 16,981 people. The club had many early successes in the Challenge Cup and reached the semi-final five times before 1910, on three occasions they reached the final but unfortuantely were knocked out in relatively minor victories for the other teams. Come the 1913-1914 season Salford took the Rugby League Championship, unfortunately financial difficulties overshadowed their victory somewhat. In the 1920's the team stuggled to survive, although this was not unusual in post-war Britain. Salford managed to turn around their fortunes and by the 1930's were considered one of the leading rugby league teams in the country, they took three League Championships, five Lanchashire League Championships, four Lancashire Cups and the Rugby League Challenge Cup. In 1934 the team visited france and were labelled Les Diables Rouges by French Journalists, a nickname that has stuck (albeit translated into English) to this day.

In the seasons following the second world war Salford slipped from one of the countries leading teams to finishing twenty-second, and then the team reversed their own fortunes to finish seventh in the 1948-1949 season, and fifth in the 1949-1950 season. Unfortunately the team struggled to keep up the performance and fell to mid-table mediocrity for quite some time. Salford were one of the pioneering teams that led the way in Sunday sports after the Rugby Football League gave permission for games to be played on a Sunday for the first time in 1967. In the early 70's the team was able to reach the top of the Lancashire Cup for the first time sine the late 1930's and beat Swinton 25-11 to win their first trophy in 33 years. The team managed to fight their way to the next three Lancashire Cup finals but didn't capture victory in any of them. As the 1970's drew to a close many of the teams former star players had left the club and there were no funds available to replace them; the future looked bleak. After a change of chairman in the early 80's the teams fortunes shifted, and towards the end of the decade Salford managed to reward their new chairman with a grand total of five trophies, respectable by any teams standards.

In 1995 Salford resisted a proposed merger that would see them form together with Oldham to form a Manchester rugby club that would compete soley in the Super League. Salford chose to add the Reds moniker to their name for the 1995-1996 season which was expanded to the Salford City Reds in 1999. In 2002 the Salford City Reds struggled to maintain their position and were removed from the Super League despite not finishing bottom of the league table. This meant that Salford had to spend the 2003 season playing in the first National League rather than in the Super League, unfortunately this has been mirrored in 2007 when they were again removed from the Super League after enjoying relatively good successes in the years in between 2003 and 2007.