Thomas Donohoe, the "Father Of Brazilian Football", was a master dyer in the calico printing industry.

[1] He organized football matches in Bangu (now a suburb of Rio de Janeiro) that year with fellow employees of the textile company Progresso Industrial Do Brazil.

Charles Miller, who some others claim to have brought football to Brazil, arranged his first match in April of the following year in São Paulo.

[2] Thomas' parents, Patrick Donohoe and Mary Ann Sloan, were Irish immigrants.

[3][4] Patrick was a block printer but eventually became the dyehouse foreman at the Busby printworks[5] which was owned by Inglis And Wakefield.

Thomas married Abigail DaSilva Torres, a Brazilian of Portuguese ancestry, in Rio de Janeiro in 1918.

[4] Platt Brothers of Oldham, Greater Manchester supplied machinery to Inglis & Wakefield, the Busby printworks owners, over many years.

[5] In 1892 or 1893, Platt Brothers delivered equipment and key personnel to a new calico print factory in Bangu.

[16] As a consequence, Bangu A.C. was awarded, in 2001 by the Rio de Janeiro state government, the Tiradentes Medal "For fearlessness and pioneering spirit in the fight to overcome discriminatory prejudices against athletes".

[20] There are internet articles which describe the first football match soon after Thomas’ wife, Elizabeth, arrived in Brazil in late 1894.

The original source of these stories is the first chapter of "Nós é Que Somos Banguenses" (We are the People Of Bangu) written by Carlos Molinari.

[21] A statue,[22][23] over four metres high, of Thomas Donohoe has been constructed by Clécio Regis, sculptor, set designer and businessman.

The sculpture was designed by Benevenuto Rovere Neto, the president of the Literary Guild José Mauro de Vasconelos, a museum in Bangu.

A sculpture[28] in Donohoe's hometown of Busby, East Renfrewshire, was commissioned[29] by the local council and officially unveiled in June 2022.

[30] The monument was designed and created by Kate Robinson whose previous works include the Brother Walfrid sculpture at Celtic Park.

The bust is located in the car park at Mary Young Place and is made of carbon fibre on a blick plinth with dimensions 1600 x 700 x 700 mm.

The reverse of the bust features the Brazilian flag together with a representation of the mountains of Ben Lomond (Scotland) and Sugarloaf (Brazil).

Patrick Donohoe (1894-1948), Thomas’ son, was the first star player of Bangu football club.

[16] In a 1955 newspaper article, Jose Trocolli, the secretary of the F.M.F., says that Patrick was an early proponent of the bicycle kick, employing it before Leonidas Da Silva.

[33] Thomas Donohoe's story was told by Storm Huntley on the Riverside Show, the first program broadcast on the launch night of STV Glasgow.

[38] In 2015, in the Rio de Janeiro International Short Film Festival, a Portuguese movie about Bangu and Thomas Donohoe called "Bola Para Seu Danau" ("Ball For Your Danau")[39] won the Curta Rio Award together with 9 other short films about the city.

Alex Salmond, former First Minister of Scotland, gave an interview to a Brazilian newspaper around the time of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.

[40] The navy blue colour of Bangu’s third football shirt, for the 2023/24 season, is in honour of Donohoe’s Scottish roots.

Thomas Donohoe made a contribution, via his church, towards the building of the Christ The Redeemer Statue in Rio de Janeiro.