In 1770 an eighteen year-old, William McAndrew, left Elgin for Liverpool and London, there to found his shipping line that specialised in fast schooners carrying fresh fruit from Spain. That business was then kept in the family, his sons going on to divide operations between the Mersey and London, but the London operation drawing still on wider family from the Moray Firth. Steamers were introduced in 1853. By 1900 twenty-three ships were under Spanish-flag, seven under British. By then British and exporting subsidiaries and further shipping companies had also been established and family members, Scots and Diasporan English, were sent and sent out out to oversee operations. And to the latter in particular went the Scottish game acquired in the meantime, Association football.

First amongst them was that in Seville. and in the form of Edward Farquharson Johnstone