This rise in stature was surprising because Swinton and Pendlebury was a tiny colliery village with a few cotton mills, but it had a large number of local junior teams from which the club drew its talent.

In 1873, they moved from Burying Lane (Station Road from circa 1889) to a ground known as Stoneacre, and used the nearby White Lion public house as changing rooms.

The Lions produced several England internationals and dozens more who gained representative recognition wearing the red rose of Lancashire.

They were initially reluctant to join the new Northern Union, but did so on 2 June 1896 due to the fact that the majority of other teams in the area had done so, causing financial hardship to the club.

Under captain, Hector Halsall, the Lions were a side with a strong Welsh presence, with players like Billo Rees as well as the Cumbrian goal-kicking second row forward, Martin Hodgson who signed for Swinton in January 1927.

Hodgson still holds the long distance penalty goal world record with a kick of 77¾ yards (at the Athletic Grounds, Rochdale Hornets, in April 1940).

Throughout the late 1940s, and the 1950s the Lions strove unsuccessfully to repeat former glories and often flattered to deceive, but the appointment of Welshman Cliff Evans as coach signalled a renaissance.

Concentrating on a youth policy and training methods beyond his era, Evans began to model an exciting, young Swinton team.

Also in the 'swinging 1960s' years the Lions fielded real top class performers such as GB internationals Ken Gowers at full-back, Alan Buckley at left-centre plus his wing partner, John Stopford.

During this same decade, local talent came to the fore with the likes of Graham Williams (scrum-half), Derek Whitehead (full-back/utility), Barry Simpson (2nd-row) and classy GB loose-forward Dave Robinson.

Of these, perhaps the most worthy were stand-off Billy 'Daz' Davies, scrum-half Peter Kenny and 2nd-rowers Rod Smith (ex-Workington Town) and the highly respected Bill Holliday (ex-Whitehaven, Hull Kingston Rovers, Cumberland and GB).

In fact it was the Lions 1960s quartet of Gowers, Buckley, Stopford and Robinson who were selected to play for the GB tourists on the 1966 tour to Australasia.

However, some critics saw this as an apology for overlooking him when the previous tourists were chosen in 1962, when many believe he was easily the most outstanding player to wear a full-back's jersey in the British game.

A proposal in 1960 to create a Manchester rugby league club at the former White City Stadium on Chester Road, Old Trafford, Stretford, received strong opposition from Salford and Swinton.

Their protests were renewed when a match was staged there between a Manchester XIII (Salford and Swinton players) and the New Zealand tourists in September 1961 and the idea was subsequently dropped.

Swinton made it to the final of the Lancashire County Cup in three consecutive seasons 1960–61, 1961–62 and 1962–63 plus 1964–65 but lost to St. Helens on each occasion at Central Park, Wigan.

Their victorious captain that early November day in 1969 at Central Park, Wigan was long serving dependable right-centre Bob Fleet.

Led by coach Cliff Evans and inspirational skipper Albert Blan, the team recovered from a slow start to complete the final backlogged 18 games (delayed due to the severe winter weather) of a 30-match league calendar undefeated to walk away with the Championship.

Players such as Les Holliday (son of Bill) and Danny Wilson offered great hope for the future, but despite a Second Division Premiership success in 1987, three separate promotions simply brought about three immediate relegations.

The financial failure of major creditor and de facto owner Hugh Eaves in 2002 put the future of the club in jeopardy, the chairman and benefactor Malcolm White resigned.

The Swinton Supporters' Trust began life on 14 February 2002 in the White Lion public house and set about raising funds for the club.

Unfortunately the football club would not grant Swinton a ten-year lease which would be required to enable much needed funding to bring the ground up to standard.

With Salford moving to a new stadium in Barton, Eccles, Swinton set up a ground-share with Leigh in the Co-operative Championship for the 2012 season and onwards whilst they await permission to build their own ground at Agecroft.

Chairman John Kidd announced his resignation and hopes of saving the club were left in the hands of director David Jones and the Supporters' Trust.

In January 2014, Salford City Reds owner Marwan Koukash announced his intention to revolutionise Swinton town centre via the development of St Ambrose Barlow RC High School.

His plans were to include a 3,000 capacity stadium for the Lions on the site of the old school playing field, alongside new housing, restaurants and a hotel.

[10] As a result of the opposition the re-brand plans were shelved and almost the entire board resigned on 12 September 2019, leaving sole remaining director Steve Wild in charge to re-structure the club.