Game in Brazil
coach and train themselves to play this way would breeze past opponents during matches. This intricate passing play, combined with incisive movement, earned Queen’s Park a nickname they have kept to this day: the Spiders.
Queen’s Park dominated the formative years in Scottish association football as their short-passing play batted away opposition and revolutionised the game. The Spiders won the Scottish Cup on 10 occasions during the first 20 tournaments – to this day, only Celtic and Rangers have lifted the oldest trophy in world football more often.
Other Scottish teams learned from Queen’s Park’s example and mimicked their tactics and before long, the Spiders’ trademark short-passing, quick-moving tactics became the status quo in our country. This tactical revolution soon spread to the national team. The first-ever international football match was held in Glasgow at the West of Scotland Cricket Club, where Scotland and England played out a 0-0 draw in 1872. Annual matches were arranged between the two and Scotland soon established themselves as the dominant side, largely thanks to the passing tactics they employed. Between 1874 and 1884, the two nations met 11 times with Scotland winning on nine occasions, one draw and a solitary England win.
BY 1888, England had embraced the ‘Scottish style’ and football was broken down into two distinct eras – the old dribbling age and the new passing one. The game was revolutionised through Scotland’s innovatory tactics and would never look or be played the same way again in the UK. The sport had begun to spread around the world but other countries were still lagging behind tactically, preferring to play in a dribbling-oriented fashion. Once again, it would be Scottish pioneers that would enlighten players and fans around the globe with their tactical revolution.
Brazil, arguably the most football-obsessed country on the planet, would become one of the biggest beneficiaries of this new style of play. It was a Scot who organised the first-ever football match on Brazilian soil in April 1894; Thomas Donahoe, a textile worker from East Renfrewshire, arranged a five-a-side game in Rio de Janeiro’s Bangu district where Brazilians first laid eyes on the beautiful game and began a love affair that continues to the present day. Years later, the club Donahoe, above, set up in 1904, Bangu Athletic, were the first side in Brazil to sign and field black players. There’s even a statue of Donahoe in Bangu, celebrating his cultural importance.
Around six months after Donohoe’s five-a-side game, Charles Miller arrived in Sao Paulo. Nicknamed ‘the father of Brazilian football’, Miller’s immense contribution to the sport cannot be underplayed. Miller, right, had spent some time in Sao Paulo as a child before moving back to the UK to be educated in Southampton. When he returned to Brazil, Miller famously arrived with two footballs and a set of rules and it became his mission to teach the Brazilians how to play.
He organised the first official match in Sao Paulo between the local rail and gas companies, helped create the Liga Paulista and starred as a player for Sao Paulo Athletic Club, a team that he also helped to set up. He later worked as an administrator and referee, devoting a tremendous amount of time and energy into the sport.
Miller and Donahoe might have brought the game to Brazil, but it was another Scot who would revolutionise football in the South American country. Matches were played but teams still relied on outdated, long-ball tactics. Jock Hamilton would put a stop to that. Hamilton came from Ayr but spent most of his football career in England playing for Wolves, Bristol City and Fulham, amongst others.
In 1907, Hamilton joined Atletico Paulistano and became the first professional football coach in Brazil, introducing the short-passing style to the league. The new innovative tactics resulted in success on the pitch, but it’s arguably Hamilton’s work off of it that was the most influential aspect of his work. Hamilton didn’t just introduce new tactics to Brazilian football – he was also the first coach to implement a systematic training regime and prepared for matches thoroughly, bringing a newfound sense of professionalism to the Brazilian league. The short-passing game that Hamilton brought with him was not only effective but aesthetically pleasing too and before long, almost every league side had adopted this style of play.
Then came Archie McLean. Hailing from Paisley, McLean came to Brazil in 1912 to work as a textile engineer and soon founded a club for expats in Brazil, named the Scottish Wanderers. The team joined the Sao Paulo state league and within a year had gained many admirers with their revolutionary tactics. McLean, in particular, enthused the locals with his style of play. As a left winger, he would play onetwos with his inside forward ahead of him and constantly leave defenders bamboozled.
The Brazilians dubbed this style of play – ‘the little chart’ – and the majority of the league soon followed suit. McLean even played for the Sao Paulo state team in their fiercely-contested rivalry with Rio de Janeiro; in an era before the Brazilian national team’s formation, this was the highest accolade a player could receive in the South American country.
These four Scots are some of the most important and influential players in Brazilian football history and their legacy remains to this day. Brazilian football is often characterised as joyful, exuberant and creative and it was Donahoe, Miller, McLean and Hamilton that laid the foundations of this style.
In Billy Kay’s book ‘The Scottish World: A Journey Into The Scottish Diaspora’, the author writes that “the fluent passing game that allows Brazilians the space on the park to express their talent is a Scottish creation that we took first to England, then South America and the rest of the world”. On FIFA’s own website, they praise Scotland’s efforts as “a hugely significant influence in developing the game in various corners of the globe, with Brazil among the most notable examples”.
Brazilian flair over the decades has captured the hearts and minds of just about every neutral football fan, but it all began in Scotland. Perhaps it’s about time we started celebrating it.
FRUSTRATED indignation seems a good a reason as any to write a book. 30 years after relocating north of the border, Jake Perry still finds a sense of exasperation washing over him whenever friends from back home or further afield show genuine surprise at mention of cricket in Scotland. Were he a cartoon character, his face would likely turn a deep scarlet at that point as steam blasts out both ears.
Perry, a music teacher by day but an enthusiastic cricket historian and writer in his spare time, has decided the best way to deal with this persistently recurring question is by committing a definitive response to print.
The result is ‘The Secret Game: Tales of Scottish Cricket’, a book that takes a gentle meander through some of the key milestones of the sport in this country and the figures that influenced its development.
Alongside tales of local heroes such as the all-conquering Lasswade side and the pioneering XI from Kelso, Perry also adds depth and colour to recollections of the global stars who graced Scottish grounds such as WG Grace and Don Bradman.
“This book is effectively my answer to the question I’m always asked: ‘What? They play cricket in Scotland?’ And I like to explain, ‘Yes, we do and have been for quite some time!’” said Perry. “There’s a rich vein of Scottish cricketing history that nobody really knows about. Even some people within the game probably aren’t aware just how vast that heritage is.
“It had never been my intention to write a comprehensive history of Scottish cricket as it would have stretched to about seven volumes and I would probably have never finished it.
“So I wanted to pick out moments in history and then try to connect them to the next significant event and tell the story that way. And it’s amazing how it all links together, right up until the present day.”
As the title suggests, cricket in this country doesn’t always get the coverage that it deserves. That’s partly due to the sort of outdated, erroneous opinion held by some that it’s a game only for English toffs. Try telling that to the millions of Australians, Indians, West Indians and South Africans who have embraced it unreservedly.
“I think cricket still suffers from the connotations of being a privileged or elitist sport,” added Perry. “That’s always confused me. Look at rugby for example – you can’t get more public school than a sport named after one of them! But rugby doesn’t seem to be talked about in the same way, maybe because Scotland competes against England on a regular basis.
“Even in parts of England there’s an almost behind-thehand disparaging way of talking about cricket.
“You don’t get that same attitude in Australia, India or South Africa where everyone plays it and enjoys it. It’s the people’s game in those countries. But it’s also always been Scotland’s summer game. Around 17,000 people play it actively by the latest figures which is a decent amount. There seems to be a reluctance in this country for some people to admit they like it which is a real shame.
“I went to one of the courses put on for kids last year and spoke to one of the mums. And she admitted she thought it was going to be really stuffy and only for posh people in their whites.
“But her son went and that family soon realised it’s not really like that. So I hope that if more people can get beyond the image they might have in their heads about cricket they can see it’s a really accessible and fun sport for everyone.”
The one-day international victory over England in the summer of 2018 thrust Scottish cricket under the spotlight like never before.
Sadly this year’s proposed encounters with New Zealand and
Australia look set to become victims of the coronavirus but Perry hoped cricket would continue to grow in Scotland once play resumes.
“The aftermath of the England game and the coverage it received gave us a glimpse of what it could be like,” he added.
“If Scotland can reach full membership status it would be phenomenal to have these sorts of fixtures on a regular basis. We had Sri Lanka and Afghanistan last year and Australia and New Zealand lined up for this year. And if we can start to get more big results then more people are going to take an interest.
“Scottish cricket is hidden in plain sight. There are such amazing stories to be told around the game. And if this book can do a little by shining a light into those corners then I’ll be really happy.”