How did Manchester United become known as ‘The Red Devils’, really?

Gus Risman wrote the following in his autobiography published in 1958:

Mention the Red Devils around Salford at the present time and people will think you are talking about Matt Busby’s great soccer side, Manchester United. But in the 1930s things were different.

Things were different in the 1930s. Salford was one of the leading clubs and Manchester United was not, in their respective sports of course. The accepted lore for the adoption of the Red Devils nickname is that Salford were given the name by French journalists in 1934 during their tour of France, then later in the wake of the Munich Air Disaster, Matt Busby took the name for the Manchester United team that was to follow, post the ‘Babes’.

There are several issues with the veracity of that lore. The main doubts are around who posited the Les Diables Rouges moniker in 1934, and the dates for when Manchester United first became known by that nickname, which don’t fit with the evidence.

So to repeat the lore, in short, Salford were given the nickname in 1934 and Manchester United took it for themselves at some point from 1958.

Let’s explore the origin of the nickname. We are in 1931 and France are expelled from the Five Nations Championship with a few charges, one being allegations of professionalism (or ‘shamateurism’). French rugby union experiences a decline through a fall in the number of participating clubs and the loss of revenue that international competition provides.1

A poster or newspaper sheet promoting the Australia vs. England match at Stade Pershing, Paris on 31 December 1933.2

In cahoots with French journalist Victor Breyer, the touring Kangaroos of 1933, co-managed by Harry Sunderland, and the Rugby Football League seize an opportunity to promote rugby league to the French audience, explicitly, as a ‘faster, more open, more attractive’ form of the game, and stage an international between Australia and England at Stade Pershing in Paris on New Year’s Eve.34

A proto France rugby league team coalesced, led by Jean Galia, and toured England a few months later. While the French won only one tour match, this was a team that had performed well despite never having played rugby league together previously. The last match of the tour – the sixth in 17 days for the French – took place on Monday 26 March, 1934, at The Willows against the reigning league champions, Salford. This match was, perhaps, a game too far against the toughest of opponents, and their biggest blowout of the tour with Salford winning 35–13. The French even had to borrow Paddy Dalton from the Reds to make things even.5

The teams and scorers on the night were:

Salford: Osbaldestin; Hudson(try), Dobing(try), Risman(4 goals), Brown(4 tries); Jenkins(try), Watkins; Williams, Day(try), Bradbury, Casewell, Middleton, Feetham(try).

‘France:’ Cassagueau; Lambert(try), Dalton, Barbazanges, Samatan(try); Carrere, Amila(2 goals); Duhau(try), Porra, Blanc, Petit?, Recaborde, Galia.

Salford presented Jean Galia with a medal bearing the Salford coat of arms, and in the wake of defeat, Galia said:

In our practice we shall endeavour to use the lessons taught us in England, particularly the lessons we were given by that grand side at Salford last night.

The French Rugby League was formed two weeks later.

A clear effort was subsequently made to foster momentum for the growth of rugby league in France. More international matches and club tours by English clubs took place in the years that followed, notably by Salford in the Autumn of 1934.

Salford were, perhaps, the ideal club at this specific time to sell rugby league to French audiences. This team was steely in defence but with an insatiable desire to attack, devastating so. They fitted the profile of being an exciting team to watch, perfectly.

Salford’s first match of their tour was in Paris, and here lay the origins of what would become the club’s new nickname. The match programme introduced the visitors as Les Diables Rouges de Salford. Before a ball had been kicked then, rather than as a descriptor earned by Salford’s style of play throughout the tour. Essentially, Les Diables Rogues was a marketing ploy. Created by whom?

Was it the writer for the programme? Was it the French rugby league or the RFL? Was it Lance Todd or his contemporary Harry Sunderland? Notably, Sunderland was invited by Salford to join the touring party, and Todd and Sunderland had a sideline as journalists. They would have understood the means of publicity and how powerful it could be.

Whoever came up with Les Diables Rouges the nickname stuck, perhaps, as Salford cut a swathe through each and every club that France could muster to challenge these virtuosos of néo-rugby.

Salford’s Emlyn Jenkins with the ball – going in for a try perchance? – against Paris XIII at La Courneuve.6

Let’s fast forward then to the story of how Manchester United became known ‘The Red Devils’. The accepted lore is that at some point from 1958, possibly around the turn of the 1960s, United’s manager Matt Busby wanted the club to have a nickname that would strike fear into their opponents, particularly in Europe. This was in the wake of the Munich Air Disaster which took the lives of several ‘Busby Babes’.

Manchester Evening News sub-editor Frank Nicklin is attributed with creating the ‘Busby Babes’ tag in 1951, which he used for a match report against Liverpool that saw two young and promising United players entering the fray. As more precocious wunderkinds emerged, products of Busby’s and Jimmy Murphy’s youth policy, the ‘Busby Babes’ stuck.

You can certainly understand why Busby may have wished for the ‘Babes’ name to rest with that lost gifted generation. Evidence for how Busby arrived at ‘The Red Devils’ though is lacking. There is a line that Matt Busby didn’t think much of the ‘Babes’ nickname to begin with, which adds weight to assertion that he actively wished to change it post-Munich. However, if that was true, it is odd that Busby made no mention of it in his 1973 memoir Soccer at the Top. Busby continued to use wording analogous with the Babes to describe the club’s rebirth, e.g. ‘[We had] more babes in the creche’. If Busby really didn’t think much of the ‘Babes’ name, this continuation seems bizarre. Although it is also plausible that the book’s editor or publisher may have insisted on the ‘Babes’ being used in context.

The crowd at Stade Emile Lagrèze await Albi vs. Salford.7

Busby played for Manchester City at the time of Salford’s dominance and the emergence of Les Diables Rouges in 1934. You’d have to imagine he lived quite locally during this time where reportage of Salford successes and its roster of international players received a fair amount of exposure. Perhaps Busby liked the name as early as then?

A more likely assertion is of Manchester United officially ratifing a nickname that had already been used prior to 1958. When United retained the league championship in 1957 with a 4–0 thrashing of Sunderland, The Times noted:

Any latecomer, squeezing into the 60,000 crowd, must quickly have seen for himself that there was really only one side on the field—the young men of Manchester, the “red devils” as they have come to be called.8

The Red Devils as they have come to be called. Since when, and for how long? Months? Years even?

The opening quote by Gus Risman came from Rugby Renegade, published by Stanley Paul in 1958. Given the lengthy process of book production – from the initial manuscript (ghostwritten by Kenneth Wolstenholme, no less) to editing, printing and release — it is conceivable that Risman penned or at least asserted those words before the Munich Air Disaster.

A noteworthy event brings us to Belgium. Manchester United made a seismic impact on the European scene in September 1956. Their first, preliminary round match in the European Cup was against Anderlecht. United’s ‘home’ leg (at Maine Road) was a 10–0 thrashing; a 2–0 win in the away win seemed meek in comparison.

It was a huge aggregate win against the champions of Belgium, the home of the original original Les Diables Rouges (or De Rode Duivels or Die Roten Teufel depending on the local tongue). Surely, the result made a big impact in the country. Are we too quick to discount the Belgian media in the nicknaming process? Red jerseys, a devastatingly great team, a victory on foreign land — elements unerringly similar to the Salford lore in 1934.

Indulge me now as this is more of a stretch, but consider the supporting relationship between Salford, the place, and Manchester United. It is a well accepted link, certainly prior to the 21st century. Did ‘The Red Devils’ nickname slowly permeate from the Salford stands to the Manchester United terraces, where it was subsequently picked up by the press?

That Salford had (or perhaps earned) the nickname before United adopted it, but is a far lesser known fact generally, has provided ammo for some Salford fans to state that Salford are the original Red Devils. In comparison and direct opposition to Manchester United, this statement is true. The level of irritation regarding this appropriation undoubtably varies depending on whether they themselves are also United fans.

Promotion material for France B vs. Belgium B at Stade Tivoli, Strasbourg, 23 March 1924.9

Strictly speaking, however, in a global sense neither Salford nor Manchester United can claim to be the original Red Devils. Diables Rouges is a nickname that appears in several places in the Francosphere. FC Rouen, for example, traces its claims to Les Diables Rouges to the early 1900s, but the most notable of this group is the Belgium national football team.

The story goes that journalist Pierre Walckiers dubbed Belgium ‘The Red Devils’ after the country’s 3–2 win over bitter neighbouring rivals the Netherlands in Rotterdam. This was in 1906.

Other Belgian representative teams, either called Diables Rouges or Belgium Select or Belgium XI, effectively Belgium’s reserve team, played several fixtures in the first half of the 20th century. Their opponents included British league representatives such as the London Combination, London FA, the Athenian League, the Welsh League and Football League clubs such as Crystal Palace. Diables Rouges were known to advertise for opponents – a small section in the 26 April 1941 edition of The Times read: ‘The Red Devils, the Belgian Association football club in London, want to meet English amateur clubs.’

When the Belgium national team or its various select sides played in the UK, the reporting always referred to them as ‘The Red Devils’. For those keeping up with football in the newspapers, this would have been a known fact prior to 1934.

Other worthy mentions include Montpellier Rugby League club, which labelled itself ‘Les Diables Rouges’ supposedly in tribute to Salford’s 1934 tour, and the supporters association for the South Korea national football team, which calls itself the Red Devils. A promotional campaign for the 2002 FIFA World Cup co-hosted by their country called ‘Be the Reds’ used a logo with an uncanny resemblance to that of the then Salford City Reds.

However it occured, we are on safe ground to conclude that ‘The Red Devils’ was attached to Salford RLFC before Manchester United because we know where and when Salford became known as Les Diables Rouges, if not necessarily how. We assume where the inspiration lies for Manchester United’s nickname, but how and when it started is muddier, and remains a topic worthy of more research.

Mike Rylance (2023) ‘Response to Keith Rathbone, “Another look at the death of Rugby League in Vichy France”’, Sport in History, volume 43: issue 1, p. 55.

‘L’Australienne Kangaroos versus Angleterre: Stade Pershing 31 decembre’, National Library of Australia (Trove), [online] https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/4532731 (accessed 20 April 2026).

Melissa McMahon (2021) ‘Unlucky XIII: Amateurism as a Weapon of War in Vichy France’, Sporting Traditions, volume 38: issue 1, p. 117.

Franck, ‘Rugby à XIII: La guerre des terrains (1934)’, [online] https://surlatouche.fr/rugby-a-xiii-la-guerre-des-terrains-1934/ (accessed 20 April 2026).

Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, Tuesday 27 March 1934, p. 19.

Franck, ‘Rugby à XIII: La guerre des terrains (1934)’, [online] https://surlatouche.fr/rugby-a-xiii-la-guerre-des-terrains-1934/ (accessed 20 April 2026).

Franck, ‘L’histoire du rugby albigeois à travers ses stades’, [online] https://surlatouche.fr/albi-a-travers-ses-stades/ (accessed 20 April 2026).

The Times, Monday 22 April 1957.

Gallica, ‘Strasbourg, Fédération Française de Football Association. Stade Tivoli. Match international, Diables Rouges de Belgique contre équipe de France b, le 23 Mars 1924’, [online] https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b102097039 (accessed 20 April 2026).