Sourcing caveat: Barrow's scoring detail, their lineup, and the referee for both sides could not be confirmed. A 13-name Salford squad list (Gear, Hudson, Osbaldestin, Brown, Edwards, Watkins, Risman, Billy Williams, Day, Dai Davies, Dalton, Feetham, Jimmy Dawson) was found woven into a commemorative 1938 poem republished by SalfordOnline.com, but that source gives no positions; positions for 6 of those 13 (Risman, Hudson, Brown, Watkins, Day, Dalton) were separately confirmed via each player's own Wikipedia biography, each of which independently states their position in this specific final — added below as a partial lineup. The remaining 7 named Salford players (and Gear's own position) could not be pinned down beyond the bare name from the poem, so are not listed with a position. No squad numbers are given since numbered shirts were not yet standard practice in this period. A second independent source (a Salford Rugby League Players blog post, "Legends of the Shirt: Alan Edwards") separately names the same 1938 Wembley-winning 13 in the order Osbaldestin, Hudson, Gear, Brown, Edwards, Risman, Watkins, Williams, Day, Davies, Dalton, Thomas, Feetham — matching the poem's 12 other names but giving "Thomas" where the poem has "Jimmy Dawson" as the 13th man. Per this site's no-overwrite rule on conflicting sources, the poem-sourced "Jimmy Dawson" name is left as-is rather than replaced with "Thomas"; this discrepancy is flagged rather than resolved, since neither source gives a position for this player and no third source was found to adjudicate. The blog post also gives no positions for any of the 13, so no new lineup positions could be added from it despite the corroboration.
Match report
Salford beat Barrow 7-4 at Wembley in front of 51,243 spectators, a result long remembered by Salford supporters as the club's only Challenge Cup triumph to date. The match was settled by a dramatic late try from Albert Gear, sealing victory in the final minute — a striking turnaround given Barrow had thrashed Salford 31-0 in a league match only three weeks before the final; future Great Britain captain Gus Risman, playing on the right wing, kicked two goals for Salford's remaining points. The Wembley showpiece was also notable for the presence of Australian Test cricketer Don Bradman, who was introduced to the Salford players before the match. The Rugby League Challenge Cup is rugby league's oldest and most prestigious knockout competition, first contested in 1896/97 under what was then the Northern Union. Its history has been interrupted only by the two World Wars, with four editions lost between 1915/16 and 1918/19 and one more in 1939/40; the finals played either side of those gaps, and during the Second World War itself, were sometimes contested as regional or two-legged fixtures under wartime emergency arrangements rather than the usual single showpiece match. For much of the competition's early history the final rotated around northern club and representative grounds such as Headingley, Fartown, Central Park and the Athletic Ground, Rochdale, before Wembley Stadium became the final's permanent home from 1928/29 onward (with a short break during Wembley's 2000-2007 reconstruction, when finals were staged at Murrayfield, Twickenham and the Millennium Stadium instead). Since 1946/47, the competition's individual award, the Lance Todd Trophy, has been presented to the final's outstanding player, voted for by a panel of media representatives at the final whistle — on several notable occasions the trophy has gone to a player on the losing side, an unusual honour that reflects the award's focus on individual performance rather than simply reflecting the final scoreline. This was the 38th Challenge Cup final played, and, under the name “Salford,” the 1st Challenge Cup title for the club.