Much like southern South America there is a strong argument that without Scots there would today be no Association football, no Soccer. In Argentina, Chile and Uruguay the alternative could easily have been rugby, whereas in North America it would without any opposition have been the American and/or Canadian variants of the game. And the evidence is to a large extent listed below in the at least one hundred and fifty-eight of our compatriots, largely un-lauded, known at one time or other over the fifty years from 1884 to have plied their trade on the other side of The Pond with almost exactly half, seventy-eight, a remarkable seven teams' worth over eighteen, in the peak year of 1928 alone.

And they came from all corners of the Central Belt and beyond as, in some cases, emigrant youngsters with their families, but mostly professional or semi-professional players making the decision that on-field their young careers were either going nowhere or they were coming to an end. Only three had been Scottish internationals and just two would go on to play for their country of origin, although more than twenty would also play for their adopted land including five in the semi-final of the very first 1930 World Cup with also the manager, Bob Millar, Paisley-born and formerly a Love St. player and the physio Jock Coll, born Irish but raised and buried a Glaswegian.

And it would not begin in the 1920s or end on-field. In the 1890's there had been the philosopher-footballer, Alexander Meiklejohn, born in Rochdale to a Stirlingshire-family via Neilston on the the way to the |States, who would play centre-half in home-town Providence, be in 1895 Treasurer of the American Football Association (AFA) and go on to be a professor and finally co-founder of the School of Social Studies at Berkeley University, by San Francisco. In the 1920s it would be Andrew Brown, another born in Paisley, who, having been a player in both countries would turn to administration in 1913 as President again of the AFA and in 1927 and 1928 of its successor, the USFA. And there would be more.