Exeter City v Brazil
An article on the Exeter City website caught my eye yesterday and got me scrabbling through the numerous shoe boxes in which I keep my collection of football programmes looking for my copy of Exeter City’s centenary brochure of 2004. As you can see they played a Brazil Masters XI, what a coup by Exeter City to get this team, including the likes of Careca, Dunga and Jorginho and officially sanctioned by the CBF, to travel over from Brazil especially for this game. Marvellous stuff, but why? Why would the greatest football nation on the planet take time to put an all-star team together and send them to play a lower-league English football club?
Back in 1914 The FA received a request from South America to provide a ‘typical English professional team’ to help promote the game in Argentina and Brazil. For some reason Exeter City, then of the Southern League were selected. After an 18-day transatlantic crossing the team arrived in Rio, where they naturally headed for the beach, stripped to their shorts and had a dip in the sea. The entire squad were promptly arrested for gross public indecency - it must have been their pasty-white English complexions that upset the locals! It all got cleared up though and the players were released without charge and continued on their way to Argentina.
In Argentina they played a number of games losing only one. In one game when the local team scored the band promptly marched onto the field of play and started up a rousing rendition of the Argentine national anthem, which they played over and over again. By all accounts it took quite some time to get the game restarted.
After the games in Argentina the club returned to Brazil and played two games against representative sides before the took to the field for an historic fixture against the first ever Brazilian national team. Previous Brazilian elevens had always been made up of players from whichever city were hosting footballing visitors. This game against Exeter included players from not only Rio but Sao Paulo too and is considering by the Brazilians to be the starting point of their national team.
A fine start it was too, the Brazilians ran out worthy 2-0 winners and with seven of the players that beat Exeter the Brazilians won their first international trophy when they beat Argentina in the Julio Roca Cup later on that same year.
Ninety years later the Brazilians sent their all-star team over to St James Park to help Exeter City celebrate their centenary. They were again winners but only by a goal to nil. Should the game in 2014 happen then it may be third time lucky for the Grecians.
Further reading: An Entirely Different Game: British Influence on Brazilian Football
