The Men Who Made Brazilian Football

It is a list, in date-of-birth order only for convenience, that, if, like me, you know the history of the early, Brazilian game, did not take long to compile. There are five names in all, all Scots, be it native-born or Diasporan and they are the ones, as players, administrators and officials, as enthusiasts, who created created Brazilian football from the first kick-about to A Tablinha and passed on their legacies to that whole football-crazy country. It began with Busby's Tommy Donohoe or rather his wife, Eliza with the four who followed providing the impetus and organisation, standards and with Archie McLean a style of play that would be adopted nationally. And it passed all that to the wider immigrant populations with, importantly in the cases particularly of Donohoe and Bangu and Scott and Ponte Preta and in contrast to elsewhere, no prejudice with regard to race and colour.