São Paulo Athletic Club -three times Paulista champions

Given their role in establishing the game in São Paulo , with The Father of Brazilian Football as their player coach it was unsurprising that São Paulo Athletic Club featured so prominently in the earliest  Paulista  championships. They won the first three championships. They won again in 1911 but withdrew from serious competition in 1912, the main focus of the club shifting to Rugby Football. 

1902

P	W	D	L	F	A
8	5	2	1	21	6

Play off: São Paulo AC 2-1 Paulistano 

Squad:

Andrews *

Walter Jeffery*

Unwin *

Heyecock

Oswald L. Wucherer

Norman Biddel *

Blackock *

Brough *

Charles William Miller

P. Montandon

Herbert John Singleton Boyes*

George Kenworthy*
Albert Kenworthy*
Sparkes
Guerra
C. P. Tomkins *

Trainers: Boyes & Miller

Top Goal Scorer: Miller 10

1903

P	W	D	L	F	A
8	6	1	1	21	5

Play off: São Paulo AC 2-1 Paulistano 

Squad:
William Holland*
Walter Jeffery *
H. W. Jeans*
Francisco Robinson
Oswald L.Wucherer
Norman Biddel*
G. Pool *
Frank H. Hodgkiss*
Charles William Miller
P. Montandon
Herbert John Singleton Boyes*
R.Duff*
King*
G. H. Ford *
Heyecock
Marsland,
Normanton
Northman *
C. P. Tomkins* 
Trail *

Trainers: Boyes & Miller

Top Goal Scorer: Boyes 5

1904

P	W	D	L	F	A
11	9	2	0	29	4

Play off: São Paulo AC 1-0 Paulistano

Squad:
William Holland *
Walter Jeffery *
Frank H.Hodgkiss *
R. Duff *
Francisco Robinson
Norman Biddel *
H. W. Wright*
P. Montandon
Charles William Miller
Frank Roberton *
Herbert John Singleton Boyes *
F.MacEwan
Robottom*
Sadler*
C. Holland *   
G. H. Ford * 
Corbet 
J. T. W. Sadler *

Trainers: Boyes & Miller


Top Goal Scorers:  Boyes & Miller 9

* English players, several others were sons of British immigrants. MacEwan was a Scot.

What a great little sport, what a nice little game.

 Miller

What a great little sport, what a nice little game... this was how Charles Miller remembered the views of his compatriots when he introduced them to Association Football - at the end of the 1894 São Paulo cricket season (how different the world of cricket might have been!).
Miller's associates in São Paulo were generally English ex-pats who since 1888 had been maintaining the São Paulo Athletic Club (SPAC). There was no Association Football played at the club until Miller's return to Brazil, in fact, several months later, in April 1895- what is recognized as the first organised football match in the country was played between São Paulo Railway and The Gas Company- both teams drawn from the ranks of the SPAC. 

Miller was in England from 1884 (when he was 10) until 1894. 
Descriptions of Miller as being a 'former Southampton player' (as in 'The Southampton player who introduced football to Brazil') are inaccurate. He turned out for St Mary's, the amateur team that evolved into Southampton (hence the nickname Saints). In fact St Mary's elevation to The Southern League (and the addition of Southampton to their name) coincided with Miller's return to Brazil.
Known as 'Nipper', Miller made his St Mary's debut as a 17 year old schoolboy on the 18th April 1892. It was  the last day of the season,a friendly against an Army XI from Aldershot. Miller scored the opener in a 3-1 win. 
During the 1892–93 season, St. Mary's (who now began to employ professional players) played 27 friendly matches. Miller's level of participation in these matches is not recorded. Saints played in 7 cup matches . Miller appeared in 1 of these. 
The following season St. Mary's played 23 friendlies. Again the details are not recorded. Of 11 cup matches played Miller appeared in 3. 
Miller'sconnection with Corinthian FC was even more casual (no pun intended). He made up the numbers when Corinth were a man short in a fixture against a Hampshire County XI. He was never a club member.

There is, of course, always a counter claim to any 'foundation myth'. It's hard to imagine that the ubiquitous 'English Sailors' who feature in the football foundation mythology of just about every country in the world were not having kick abouts in Rio or São Paulo in the 20 odd years before the São Paulo Railway v Gas Company fixture. 
One noteworthy challenge to Miller's status as the father of Brazilian football comes in the form of a  31 year old Scotsman called Thomas  Donohue. Donohue was an expert in the field of dyes, and worked at a textile factory in Bangu, Rio de Janeiro . He had played a lot of football back home in Busby, and was keen to get a game going in his new neighbourhood. He imported a ball and marked out a pitch next to the factory. 

Donohue

This was where the first football match in Brazil took place in April 1894, (six months before Miller started his team in São Paolo). One fly in the ointment as regards the Donohue claim is the fact that this match was a 5 a side, due to a lack of interested parties. 
10 years later the factory was the site of the foundation of  Bangu Atlético Clube. 
There is something about these two matches that sets the scene for the early decades of the Brazilian game in  that whereas Miller introduced the game in the context of an exclusive sporting club for well to do white immigrants, Donohue brought the game to poor black and working class people. 

Pro Vercelli and Torino -Tours of Brazil and Argentina 1914

Torino

The fact that two clubs from the same corner of Italy (Turin and Vercelli are just 65 km apart) were in South America at the same time has got far more to do with Brazilian rivalry than with Italian neighbourly cooperation.
At the time São Paulo football had two competing governing bodies.
Growth of football popularity amongst the lower classes had generated a rift in the Liga Paulista de Foot-Ball (LPF). The LPF had elitist tendencies, and stood in the way of the extension of football to the working classes. This exclusive position led to creation of another governing body, the Associação Paulista de Esportes Atléticos (Paulista Association of Athletic Sports-APEA), which promoted football across all social classes.
 Liga Paulista de Foot-Ball invited Torino to play against  São Paulo league teams.
Not to be outdone, the APEA issued an invitation to Pro Vercelli. This was quite a coup, as 
Pro Vercelli had been national champions in 1913 (they were champions seven times between 1908 and 1922).

Corinthians

Luzitano

                                                              

Brazil
2.8.14	Paulistano	1	Pro Vercelli	0	São Paulo
3.8.14	Paulistano/Scottish Wanderers	5	Pro Vercelli	1
6.8.14	Palmeiras/ Mackenzie College	1	Pro Vercelli	1
9.8.14	São Bento/ Ypiranga	2	Pro Vercelli	2
9.8.14	CA Internacional	0	Torino	6
12.8.14	Foreign Players of LPF League (Germania)	1	Torino	5
13.8.14	APEA League XI	2	Pro Vercelli	1
15.8.14	Corinthians	0	Torino	3
18.8.14	LPF League XI	1	Torino	7
20.8.14	Botafogo / Flamengo	1	Pro Vercelli	1	Rio de Janeiro
22.8.14	Fluminense /América	1	Pro Vercelli	4
22.8.14	Corinthians	1	Torino	2*	São Paulo
23.8.14	** League XI	1	Pro Vercelli	1	Rio de Janeiro
25.8.14	Luzitano	0	Torino	3	São Paulo
27.8.14	** League XI	4	Pro Vercelli	1	Rio de Janeiro
Argentina
September	Argentina	2	Torino	1	Buenos Aires
	Racing Club	1	Torino	0
	Argentinian League	0	Torino	2

	P	W	D	L	F	A
Pro Vercelli	9	1	4	4	12	18
Torino	9	7		2	29	6

* Torino's winner was controversial- a 'Wembley-Tor', awarded by Referee Charles Miller after  Di Bernardi's shot hit the crossbar and bounced down without clearly crossing the line.
Vittorio Pozzo's verdict on the hosts was: Corinthians can go to Europe and face any of the teams there without fear .
**Some sources list the League selection team  as AMEA League XI, however, AMEA was not founded until 10 yrs after this trip took place. The governing body in Rio football at the time was LMSA-Liga Metropolitana de Sports Athléticos. The League XI was a combined Flamengo /América team.