You all know that Manchester United Football Club is commonly referred to as the Red Devils. Do you know why? I did a little bit of digging and found the origins of the name, and that is used by a surprising number of clubs across numerous sports. Let’s first start though with arguably the world’s most popular sports franchise.

There are conflicting reports as to the origins of how Manchester United came to be called Red Devils. If you believe the the older of the two, than the roots of the nickname is derived from the early days of the club not so long after the club’s founding in 1878. The club’s original name was Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Football Club. Because the name is so long, they came to be known as “Heathens” (non-believers) after the “Heath” part of their name. Many believe that red devils was adopted as a play on their “Heathen” roots.

Another possibility that has very strong support, is that the club borrowed its name from the Salford Rugby League club. Manchester United’s original training grounds were located in Salford, an area of Greater Manchester, so the football and rugby clubs were close in proximity. The story goes that in the 1960’s, the Salford Rugby squad toured around France wearing red jerseys. The club was coined “red devils”. Manchester United manager Sir Matt Busby liked the sound of that, and decided his club should use the name as well.

What can’t be disputed is that the red devil first appeared officially as part of the team’s crest in the 1973. The original crest had been borrowed from the city of Manchester, but in the 1973 the crest underwent changes to replace the stripes with the familiar red devil.

As mentioned at the outset, there are many other teams who also use “red devils” in their name, but for lack of universal exposure most of us know nothing about them. They represent many sports, covering both professional and amateur leagues. I won’t give you an exhaustive history of each, but here they are – notice, many of them are as old or older than Manchester United:

Rugby:

Montpellier -France – founded 1903

Salford City – England – founded 1873

Hockey:

Canterbury – New Zealand – 2005

MMA:

Red Devils Sport Club – Russia – founded 1997

Football:

Grazer AK – Austria – founded 1902

Club Toluca – Mexico – founded 1917

FC Kaiserslautern – Germany – founded 1900

Club Atletic Independiente – Argentina – 1904

Al-Ahly – Egypt – founded 1907

Crawley Town – England – founded 1896

Hapoel Tel Aviv – Israel – founded 1927

Nikana FC – Zambia – 1935

FC Rouen – France – 1899

Corporacion Deportiva America – Colombia – founded 1918

Bulancakspor – Turkey – founded 1926

CD Diablos Rojos – Peru – 1965

Belarus National Team

Belgian National Team

Congo National Team

South Korea National Team

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