In 1894 Charles Miller arrived from England with two footballs, some kit and a set of Hampshire FA "rules". Miller was born in Sao Paulo to an English father, Scot John Miller, a railway engineer, and a Brazilian mother; very much part of the coffee and commerce elite of Sao Paulo. He was sent to England for his education, to a school called Bannister Court on Hampshire. He played football for the school team and the Corinthians as well as the recently formed local professionals, St Mary's, later Southampton FC.
Returning to Brazil, he played for the Sao Paulo Cricket Club and persuaded his friends to play a "winter" sport, football. The first matches in 1895, were played on land scrubland, east of the city where mules grazed. The beasts of burden were used to pull city trams. The mules were chased away and replaced by lads called Sao Paulo Railways, playing The Gas Team from a local gas company.
In 1897, Hans Nobiling, a German immigrant, landed in Sao Paulo with German rules and some status of playing in Hamburg. A stranger, he couldn't get a game with Sao Paulo AC, so he gathered "excluded" non-Anglo immigrants and formed AC Internacional. More clubs formed included an exclusively Teutonic SC Germania, a team formed by American students from the local Mackenzie College and CA Paulistino a sports' club made of the city Brazilian elite.
By 1901 the club played friendlies, for example in May against some English sailors and by 1902 an extensive league programm (1st League), the Liga Paulista and city championship was staged. Brazil's National Football Day is held on July 19th to celebrate the club's founding.
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