The story that is told of football in Sao Paulo in Brazil always begins, perhaps wrongly, with Charles Miller. Yet the square in front of the old Pacembu stadium, superseded only by the new one at Morumbi built for the 2014 World Cup, and where the city's wonderful football museum is still housed is named after him and rightly so. He was and remains one of the three men responsible for the establishment of football in Brazil's largest city. Of the other two the first was Casimiro da Costa. Although and importantly Swiss-educated, Switzerland being the first country outside Britain, where football found a home, he was the teenage son, born in 1878, of an established Paulista family. He could thus be the advocate for locals in the game, the first translator of the game's rules into Portuguese and the link with the then capital, Rio de Janeiro. The third was Hans Nobiling, from Hamburg, already a player there and the figurehead for the non-British but European players in his adopted home-town.
Charles Miller was born in 1874 on the edge of Sao Paulo, only a town then of perhaps 50,000, on the estate of his grandparents, Henry Fox and Harriet Rudge. That part of the story is straight forward. As to the rest of it there are anomalies. The story has been that he was the son of Scottish engineer and a Brazilian mother. That the father, John Miller, was Scots is undoubtedly true. He was born in the village of Fairlie just outside Largs, the son of Andrew Miller and Elizabeth Brown, who soon move to settle in Greenock. It is also said that it was working as an engineer for the railways that took John Miller to Brazil in 1867. That is also true, at least to begin with. However, on his death certificate he was recorded as a “General Merchant”.
Additionally, that his mother, Carlota, Charlotte in English, was Brazilian is not completely true. She was certainly born in Brazil but into a British, an English merchant family, the Foxes. They had arrived two generations earlier, prospered become an integral part of a British community that was constantly being reinforced and reinvigorated by arrivals, not least more railwaymen but also merchants, bankers and others. Those others included in Sao Paulo two of John Miller's brothers, Peter and William, with a third, Andrew, in Santos.
That four Miller brothers went to Brazil is also complicated. Their father, a humble porter, died in 1869. He drowned, aged 53, found by the town's steamboat quay. How and why he fell into the water is unclear. John was twenty-five, his brothers much younger, two under 10. John was already in South America. The brothers had some growing up to do before they followed on. The arrival of football in Sao Paulo is also more complicated than as first it seems. Charles Miller had been sent to school in England, to Southampton at the age of six. He returned for the final time in 1894. By then both his grandmother and his father were dead. She had died in Greenock in March 1886, signed off by her son, William. John presumably returned to Scotland on news of her death. He decided there to be operated for a hernia but dying as a result in Glasgow in October that same year, he is buried alongside his father, mother and other members of the Scottish family in Greenock cemetery.
It meant that at the age of twelve Charles had lost his father. His uncle William, who in Brazil had married Charles Miller's mother's cousin, would die in Sao Paulo in 1892 as would Charles' younger brother, John Henry. But in the meantime Charles' English education would continue and it had to be paid for. In fact the truth is that the family was comfortable financially from Charles's mother's side. In their years in the city the Foxes had been heavily involved in business. They were also instrumental in the foundation of the British club and its sporting offshoot, the Sao Paulo Athletic Club (SPAC), which exists to this day.
There is no doubt that Charles Miller was a footballer of talent, as a youngster a winger. He was also a keen cricketer. He had arrived with John Henry at boarding school at the age of ten in 1884 and a time when football was growing in strength even in a South of England that was slower to take to the game than the North. He was on the face of it very much a product of the English public-school system, in Brazil an "English" gentleman. But he had, like so many British South Americans, whose families prospered, came from a Scottish background that was much, much more humble.
Miller, known as "Nipper", would play regularly for his school, for Hampshire from 1892, occasionally for St. Mary's that would become Southampton F.C. and a couple of times for the elite amateur club, Corinthian, alongside C.B. Fry and the Anglo-Scot,
Gilbert Smith, both England internationals, when the club was touring the area and a player short. And the football he knew as a result was the English game with its emphasis on long-ball and dribbling, and not the Scottish one.
There seems little doubt too that when the young, twenty-year old Miller landed in 1894 at Santos to take the train the short distance to Sao Paulo he brought with him the most up-to-date football equipment, note not the FA rule-book but the Hampshire FA one, and a desire to continue playing the game. But his initial move was to join SPAC with the Brazilian summer on its way to play cricket. The club itself had been formed six years earlier. Amongst its founders were William Snape, William Speers, Percy Lupton and Charles Walker plus William Fox Rule, Charles Miller's cousin, and his late uncle, Peter Miller. It meant the young Miller had status that when he suggested that the club might also play football he would be listened to as he was when later he suggested the laying of a pitch.
By April 1895 Miller was able to arrange the first organised game, played on the city's then edge on scrub-land at Varzea do Carmo between colleagues at the Sao Paulo Railway, where Miller was then working, and employee's of the local Gas Company. Miller scored twice in a 4:2 victory for the railway-men. With the first game football had a foothold but it not explode. There were friendly games played in 1895 and 1896 at Chacara Dulley, a country-house estate then a mile or so outside Sao Paulo, a city that had doubled in size from the one that had seen Miller's birth. From 1892 the Chacara, the small estate, has been used by the members of SPAC for cricket and golf and its owner, the American, Charles Dulley, proved just as supportive of Charles Miller and his new football. Dulley, after all, was another of Miller's relatives, having also married a Fox, Ana Fox, his aunt, his mother Carlota's sister.
In 1898 the SPAC golfers acquired land to build their first dedicated course. At about the same time SPAC itself began the search for a site for a dedicated clubhouse and grounds nearer the city. They found the land in 1899, where they still are in Consolacao, just a mile and a half from the city-centre. It was leased initially for ten years by the owner, a lady, Sra Prado, from an important Paulista family. Her son, Antonio, it is said, had earlier got into political trouble and been forced to flee the country, helped by William Rule Fox. In 1899 that same Antonio Prado became Sao Paulo's mayor and would remain so for a decade. A debt was perhaps being repaid and it was there at Consolacao that, again with the promotion of Charles Miller, a first dedicated football field was laid.
In the meantime both Casimiro da Costa and Nobling had returned to and arrived in Sao Paulo respectively. The German had been born in 1877, arriving aged twenty in the city in 1897 having been a member of the SC Germania team in his native Hamburg. On arrival he organised a Sao Paulo Transport company team, which also played at first at Chacara Dulley and was instrumental in the initiative to try to form the city's first football club. In fact two clubs at first based still at Chacara Dulley would emerge when an international group of enthusiasts met together in 1899 but failed to come to an agreement. Of the twenty there the five Germans including Nobling would form SC Germania, now Esporte Club Pinheiros and the others, SC International, with which Casimiro da Costa became associated on his return from Switzerland.
Meanwhile in 1898 Charles Miller had left the Sao Paolo Railway and joined The London and Brazilian Bank as friendly games continued to be played. Charles Miller scored a hat-trick, but not for his old employers, when in July 1898 the railway company took on SPAC. In addition Mackenzie, from the city's American-founded, Presbyterian college also formed a team and joined in, from when developments would be more rapid. 1899 saw SPAC installed in its first and present purpose-built grounds. The Miller football pitch followed. In 1901 it was Casimiro da Costa and Nobling, who were then instrumental in the foundation of the Sao Paulo Football League, the first league in Brazil, drawing together original and newer-formed teams, from which formalised clubs were emerging. The league consisted of SPAC itself, International, Germania, Mackenzie College and a fifth, Paulistano, the Prado family team from Sao Paulo's established, Brazilian elite and formed in 1900. Casimiro da Costa would for the next three years be the league's first president. Sao Paulo football, unlike other cities in South America would never be under British stewardship. Nor would the Brazilian game as a whole. It would, however, be under Prado control, directly under Armando and Antonio from 1904 until 1908, and then again in 1913 and 1914, 1924 and from 1926 to 1929.
It was in 1900 that Charles Miller once more moved on, leaving the Bank and becoming both the representative of the Royal Mail shipping-line and joining the Phoenix Insurance Co., managed by SPAC founder, Percy Lupton. That same year too the Prado family took the decision to allow what had been built as a not very successful cycling venue a short distance from SPAC to be converted for football. And it was there at the Velodromo on the new pitch that in 1901 two games would be played by a Sao Paulo-select team against a Rio XI organised by Oscar Cox, Casimiro da Costa's acquaintance from school in Switzerland. The Rio team paid their own train fares to get there and both games were refereed by
Alex Lamont, the founder and Secretary in Buenos Aires of the first two of that country's football leagues, who had come to Rio in 1894 and came up from Rio with the players.
The first Sao Paulo Football League game took place on 8th May 1902, Mackenzie beating Germania, 2-1. Nobling was at left-back for the Germans. Casimiro da Costa was referee. Five days later SPAC played Paulistano at home. Charles Miller was SPAC's centre-forward. Casimiro da Costa was again referee. And in the third game, Germania versus Internacional, Casimiro da Costa was inside-right for the latter, Miller was referee and the trophy they were playing for was the Antonio Casimiro da Costa Cup. It would be won at the end of the season by Sao Paulo Athletic (SPAC), playing 2.3.5, after a play-off against Paulistano and by the odd-goal in three. Charles Miller scored both SPAC goals and was the season's top scorer.
In 1903 the final result was almost the same as the previous year. It involved the same teams and a play-off, with SPAC interestingly now playing not the English 2.3.5 but the Scottish 2.2.6. It begs the question why the change? SPAC seems to have few if any obviously Scots names on the team-sheet. Otherwise the only differences were that in the play-off Miller was not on the score-sheet and Casimiro da Costa had not played all season. In fact he refereed but did not play again. Only in 1904, when the league was joined by a sixth team, Palmeiras, which finished in last place, was there an outright winner. But it was still SPAC, Charles Miller, now aged thirty, again scored the winning and only goal and with his fellow SPAC player, Herbert Boyes, was once more top scorer.
It was only in 1905 that SPAC for the first time did not win the league. In fact it finished a poor fourth, losing more games than it won in spite of Charles Miller playing in every one. Instead the title went to Paulistano by a margin of five clear points. It was clear it and the other clubs were learning the game. And the decline of SPAC on the football field continued the following year. In 1906 it would seemingly finish last, not winning a single game. Miller, now thirty-two, played just two games, once at left-back, once in goal and then looked to have left the sport forever. It might have been because of age or because that year he married Antoinette Rudge, a Brazilian-born pianist and relative of his grandmother. On the other hand it might simply have been shame. His last game would be a week after he had played at inside-right for a Sao Paulo XI against a visiting South African team. Sao Paulo had been roundly beaten, 6:0 and perhaps this and then a nine-nil defeat at the hands of Internacional seven days later was enough, it is said, to have prompted Miller's resignation not just from it football committee but from SPAC itself. It would explain his non-appearance for the rest of the season. However, the resignation was seemingly to be short-lived. SPAC's blushes would be somewhat saved when Palmeiras was accused of financial irregularity and had all it points annulled. Having topped the league it was placed last and the trophy awarded to Germania.
However, for all its problems on the field off the field SPAC was both flourishing and still knew the right people. Antonio Prado remained the city's mayor and his family now had a strong interest in the success of football not just as a sport but as a business. After all it owned the Velodromo and it had become the city's major venue for the new and booming sport, which was drawing large crowds. And he was prepared to sell SPAC the Consolacao grounds, with, incidentally, the Prado legal representative in the sale another member of the Rudge family.
In 1907 Palmeiras with all points deducted was demoted from the league but two new teams joined, Americano and Internacional, both from Sao Paulo's port, Santos. Internacional would take the league, the Sao Paulo Internacional not the Santos newcomer. SPAC was again in penultimate place. Miller played five games early in the season, where he was joined in the team by J. E. Steward, who had arrived from playing in Argentina. Then Miller travelled to Britain, having in the meantime been appointed Sao Paulo's British Consul, and his first child, also called Charles, would be born.
Back in Brazil in 1908 Charles Miller again began the season in the SPAC goal. The following game he was back at centre-forward but just for two games. Then it was then back into goal, out of the team and finally refereeing. The club again finished in penultimate place with only two games won all year, whilst Paulistano took top-spot and Americano second. And in July the Argentinians came to town with a team that included five of the Brown brothers. Seven games were played, three in Sao Paulo, three in Rio and one in Santos. The visitors drew the first against the Sao Paulo's foreigners including Miller and Steward and won the rest.
The new season, 1909, looked as if it might be a repeat of 1907 only worse. SPAC now propped up the league, winning just a single game as a re-stored Palmeiras topped it. Palmeiras would also finish in first place the following year, 1910. SPAC would meanwhile improve to third, Charles Miller in the team mainly in goal until mid-season. It was to be his playing swan-song. A new generation of players had begun to appear and the nature of the game in Sao Paulo was changing.
The first of the new arrivals would make his first appearance at inside-left for Americano in May, notable for two other new arrivals, the the Bertone brothers. He would feature at centre-forward against SPAC in June, then at left-wing versus Paulistano and in every other game that season. His name was John Hamilton, J. G. Hamilton, a young clerk from Scotland and he was noticed. The following season, 1911, he had moved to SPAC, making a first appearance in the club's second game and would have an immediate difference. He scored in his first game, and in his third, fourth, fifth and seventh. SPAC would lose only one game all year and in November 1911 after a five year slump once more top the table. They would finish four points above Americano, whilst at the other end of it Palmeiras after three games had simply dropped out.
For the 1912 season Palmeiras was replaced by a rejuvenated Mackenzie. It had also been recruiting and presumably making it financially worthwhile. Steward had joined from SPAC, perhaps a first sign of shamateurism, and from Germania had come a certain Arthur Friedenreich, who would go on to become Brazil's first, great Black footballing star. In July in a 3:6 defeat by a visiting Argentinian XI he would lead the line in a Sao Paulo team without a single SPAC player. The British club clearly had something of a problem in fielding a team and was drafting in what it could, never mind providing internationalists. And it too was looking for reinforcements. Hamilton did not play in the third-to-last match. The forward-line was re-jigged. A new name was on the team-sheet, MacLean, Archie McLean. Turning out for SPAC for the first time he was not entirely new to the city. A semi-professional in Scotland he had in April 1907 been sent for two months by his employers, Coats the Paisley thread-makers, to their factory in the Sao Paulo suburb, Ipiranga. Whilst there he played four games for Germania on the right-wing. Now about to play in the Scottish Second Division, it is said with Johnstone but perhaps for Ayr United, for which he was registered, he came in on SPAC's left-wing, was then gone as Hamilton returned for the penultimate fixture before in the season's last game both Hamilton, who scored, and McLean were in the team together.
Yet it was to be brief partnership. The end of 1912 saw SPAC only fifth of seven in a division topped once more by Americano but not without controversy. It was the same argument that would occur not just in Brazil but also in Argentina and Uruguay, that is the question of increasing shamateurism. Americano, having moved in its entirety from Santos to Sao Paulo was intent on consolidation. It had recruited the Bertones. They were top players but there was a problem. They were Uruguayan, both coming from Montevideo Wanderers, the runners-up in the Uruguayan league in 1911. Not only that Juan Carlos Bertone had between 1906 and 1911 played eleven times for the Uruguayan national side and even captained it. And they were not in Brazil for sightseeing. They were professional players in all but name and they were at Americano more for remuneration than the love of the game.
The other teams reacted and in different ways. SPAC, already havering after the poor performances of recent years and some members' preference for rugby, simply dropped out of league football. Paulistano, Mackenzie and Palmeiras formed their own league, the Sao Paulo Athletic Sports Association (SPASA). The others stayed put, reinforced by two newly-formed teams, Corinthians and Santos. Santos FC, the team that was to be Pele's, was created in the vacuum left by the demise in 1910 of Internacional and the move in 1911 of Americano to Sao Paulo. And on Corinthians too was the mark of Charles Miller. It was founded by a group of non-British railway workers, who with no railway club of their own had in 1910 watched a game played against a Sao Paulo XI with again Charles Miller, Hamilton and Steward involved by a team visiting for the first time from England. It was the team Miller had himself played for as a very young man in England more than fifteen years earlier, Corinthian. Inspired, the local men decided to form their own club and at the suggestion of Miller adopted the Corinthian name as their own.
The footballing demise of SPAC signalled the end of Charles Miller's playing career at least in the top flight. It did not end his association with the game. He had refereed in 1912. He did so again in 1914 and 1916 before at the age of forty-two finally fading from on-field football but not from Sao Paulo life. He would live out his days there, highly respected as one of the trio that were the founders of the game in his city. He would die in Sao Paulo in 1953, aged 78, having been a frequent traveller to and from Britain between the Wars and returning for the last time in 1950. Hans Nobiling died the following year still in Brazil but in Rio de Janeiro. Antonio Casimiro da Costa outlived them all. He would die in 1973 in his mid nineties.