Mario Zagallo, Flavio Costa, Aymoré Moreira and Ademar Pimenta are all part of a very exclusive group.
All of them are indispensable figures in the sizzling football life of Rio de Janeiro; all of them have coached the Brazilian National Team at some point; and all of them have spent time at a small, marginal club from the suburbs of Rio that most of you probably haven't heard of - Bangú.
Clashes between the periphery and centre of societies have often occurred in football. Aside from the stories of the marginal impact of the peripheral subjects over the mainstream, there are few journeys of clubs or teams which are highly significant. This is exactly the story of Bangú.
Bangú is a neighbourhood located in the western part of the Brazilian metropolis of Rio de Janeiro. The meaning of the neighbourhood's name in the Tupí language (the indigenous language) was "A black wall”. In the slang of the African slaves, who were brought to the area during the 16th and 17th centuries, the name Bangú originated as the sawdust mills for sugar cane, which were stored in warehouses in the area.
At the end of the 19th century, British industrialists and entrepreneurs arrived in Rio de Janeiro as part of the economic British colonisation in Latin América.
Companhia Progresso Industrial, which established a textile factory in a Rio suburb, was a British-owned and operated company.
Along with the increased industrialisation, the British imported to Brazil one of its most notable icons – football. The game, which was gaining in popularity in Europe at the time, came with the British executives and employees of the companies who settled in the Brazilian port city and its surroundings, including Bangú.
At first, the establishment of the factory's football team was a leisure time solution for the British workers, as well as a decent physical and social activity. The first team of Bangú’s first team included five Englishmen, three Italians, two Portuguese and only two local Brazilians.
The geographical isolation of the neighbourhood from the developing cosmopolitan centre of Rio at the beginning of the 20th century led the British managers to hire more Brazilians for a variety of roles at the factory. The locals found jobs, learned the rules of soccer and began to integrate the team. Bangú was the first team to field black and mulatto players in Brazil. Francisco Carregal was the first one, when he went on a substitute in a friendly match. The club was the 'pioneer' of the spreading phenomenon, though the concept was not popular at all just after the abolition process of black slavery in the country.
Bangú's burgeoning community was highly affected by the way the local football ground was built. There was no separation between the stands, the benches and the playing field. The families and friends of the workers/players, as well as neighbours who lived by the factory, became the fans of the club. Slowly, Bangú became the symbol of the developing new working class of the Rio suburbs.
As the popularity of the game and the team grew in the industrial town, the factory managers decided to promote the game of football. They began to use it for instilling discipline and values for the employees and encouraging the workers’ to identify with the factory, the company and the community. After the club joined the Rio de Janeiro first division, the Campeonato Carioca, the club's fan base grew extensively and the team became more famous than the factory it represented.
The club’s logo was designed and painted by one of the plant’s directors, the Portuguese Jose Villas-Boas.
The letters A, B and C, stood for the club’s official name: Bangú Atletíco Clube. Beyond the initials of the team’s name, the interpretation of the letters represents the club’s community values and pillars. The letter B, was painted as a pair of pince-nez glasses, which were very common at the time and symbolised the intellectual and social aspects of the club; the letter A is a painting easel, symbolising the artistic and cultural side of the club; the letter C was drawn as a horseshoe and signified the sporting success and the values of sport. Society, Culture and Sports have been inscribed on Bangú’s flag since its very beginning.
Around the club’s kit of red and white stripes, there are several theories. One theory claims that the British workers of the factory chose the colour red in honour of St. George, the patron saint of England, who was associated with the colour red. Another theory says that the colours were the colours of the workers’ favourite English football club, Southampton, which has its kit adorned with three roses - two red and one white.
Since 1929, Bangú has been nicknamed "The Pink Mulattoes". What started out as an answer to an insult from another club’s president, became a cult nickname. Many of the club’s players were mulattoes and blacks and during games, they used to sweat of course, so the red-white shirts became pink.
In 1981, many fans criticised the club’s kit for being characterless and pointed out that the issue makes it harder for the club to deal with the bigger clubs in terms of recognition. As a response, the club’s owner Castor de Andrade selected a mascot - a beaver (in Portuguese: Castor).
The beaver was the first animal mascot in Brazil, a gimmick which all the biggest clubs in the country adopted after. Even today, on the left side of the kit, there’s the club’s traditional logo, and on the right side - the black beaver, which has become an integral part of the club’s character, as a tribute to the importantowner, Castor de Andrade.
In 1985, the military dictatorship in Brazil officially came to an end after 21 long years. In 1983, the transition to democracy process began. The transition took place relatively smoothly and was marked by the treatment in the economic disparities between the rich and the poor, a serious economic crisis and heavy inflation. The economic reality of these years indirectly integrated into the complex race relations between white, black and mulatto Brazil. Ironically or not, a few months later, Bangú reached their greatest achievement ever.
In June 1985, the team qualified for the Brazilian finals against Coritiba, a club founded by German immigrants in the city of Curitiba in the State of Parana, in southern Brazil. Unlike Rio, Parana was then considered, and still is, a region with a high percentage of the white population. The racial difference in the two clubs’ identities, added some weight to the prestigious encounter.
During that season, Bangú played some attractive football under the guidance of coach Moisés, with the team being based mostly on mulatto and black players, such as Marinho, Lulinha and Arturzinho. They achieved impressive results against more established clubs, as Vasco da Gama from Rio de Janeiro and Internacionál of Porto Alegre.
The final was played at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro, in front of a crowd of 91,527 spectators. Fans of the big Rio teams, Flamengo, Vasco da Gama, Fluminense and Botafogo, came to support Bangú against the "white" rivals from Coritiba.
A carnival atmosphere was created by the fans in the stadium, which was reminiscent of the famous carnivals of Rio de Janeiro. The local residents encouraged the suburban neighbourhood club to success. For a moment, it seemed that for a single evening, Bangú managed to get out of the neighbourhood, out of the industrial suburb of Rio, and entered the heart of the Brazilian nation – the Maracana.
The game ended in a 1-1 draw and went to a penalty shoot-out. It was 6-5 in favour of Coritiba when Bangú’s Ado took his penalty and missed it. To the disappointment of their fans and players, Bangú lost on penalties to Coritiba, a loss that still haunts some of them to this day.
After these successful years, Bangú began to sink slowly and found it difficult to reproduce the great season of 1985. Since the early 2000s, the club has mainly played lower league football in Serie C or D. In 2008, Bangú won the Carioca Second Division Championship for the last time.
Bangú Atlético Clube was born as a recreation solution for the workers of a textile factory on the periphery of Rio de Janeiro.
For years, it drew its values and culture from European workers, who were integrated into the emerging community of a neighbourhood based on the plant and in particular, on the club. The club’s officials used the battle against racism as the club’s motto, in the early years of "The Old Republic" (1889-1930) in Brazil, where racism was not defined as such but was a normal perception and a given mood.
In one hundred and eleven years of existence, Bangú has not won impressive titles or silverware, has not become a permanent member of the mainstream and its name does not stand alongside the biggest and most influential clubs of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. However, in a gentle sense, Bangú is a trailblazer in the general history of Brazil. The ethos of the club since it was founded is a breakthrough for the club´s original periphery from where it came, for mulattoes and blacks, for the nascent working class and for the development of community life, which were founded on society, culture and sports.