Alex Lamont

John Anderson

Alex Watson Hutton

Arnold Watson Hutton

Arnot Leslie Snr.

Arnot Leslie Jnr.

George & William Leslie

Hugh Wilson

Thomas Lipton

Jorge Brown

Alfredo Brown

Carlos Brown

Eliseo Brown

Ernesto Brown

Diego Brown (Back row, second from right, plus Carlos, Tomas, middle row, second from left, and Ernesto

Juan Domingo Brown

The "British" era, that is to say the Scots era of Argentine football lasted twenty-six years, just a little over a generation, from 1889 until 1915. It ended in Buenos Aires when the in-Argentina-largely-ignored Hugo (Hugh) Wilson stepped down after fully six clearly important but much under-rated years as President of the Argentinian Football Association, handing the his bi-lingual, English-Spanish, 'scrillo', Argentine-born Diasporan Scots, reins to the Spanish-only crillo ones of his successor, Adolfo Orma. But it had formally begun in 1889 not in the country's capital but its second-city, Rosario, with the foundation of doyen club, then the closed Central Argentine Railway Athletic Club (CARAC), now Club Atletico Rosario Central with for its first dozen years Colin Bain Calder, born and raised in Dingwall, as its first President.

And to a degree CARAC remain something of a family-concern. Once in Argentina Bain Calder had met and married Mary Green, born in West Calder of Irish parents, and it was her younger brothers, Michael, Miguel and then Danny, Danilo, both born in Argentina, who from 1890 to 1911 became two of the club's earliest players of note. In fact it was Miguel, who in 1904 suggested that their club, until then restricted to the railway company's employees only, be opened to all comers and essentially making it the viable, indeed today. top-flight club it is today.

However, meanwhile Buenos Aires had been doing some catching up. Whilst the first recognised Association football match there had taken place in 1889 also, the Argentine Association Football League was founded only in 1891. Its President was the Englishman, F.L Wooley and organiser, its Secretary, the Scot, Alex Lamont. Six teams signed up, five took part, at the end of the season two, two clearly Scots teams, Old Caledonians and St. Andrew's, Lamont's team, shared top spot with then a play-off resulting in the title for St. Andrew's, 3-1, but only after extra-time.

And it is likely that there would have been a second championship in 1892 but for the death of President Wooley, at which point Lamont had to find a replacement. And he did so for 1893 in the shape of fellow-Scots, the founder of the city's English High School, which exists to this day and where the pupils were playing already football, and who had been one of the participants in the 1889 game, Alex Watson Hutton. Glasgow-born and Edinburgh-raised he has come to be regarded as The Father of Argentine Football, but to a degree by a twist of fate. The first playing of the new league, with English High School taking part, would be won by Lomas, the league top-scorer being its William Leslie. And the second playing would be topped by the same club, but Lamont would not be there to see it. Having set up the season, his time at a end in Argentina he moved on, probably to Brazil. It left Watson Hutton there to see things through, which he did until he stepped back after three years from the presidency at the end of 1896 season.

Lomas had meantime won a third title, and the associated school, Lomas Academy the fourth, with in that 1896 season the joint top-scorer now Lomas's locally-born Juan (John) Anderson. Moreover, the following season 1897, with Lomas retaking the title once more the leading scorer was again from the club, this time Uruguayan-born William Stirling. Anderson had a Scottish father, Stirling and also Leslie, indeed with brother George, Leslies, had Scottish parents. And then there were Arnot and Arnot. It was the Christian-name of two more of the Leslie clan, son and father. The former had been a good friend of Alex Lamont. And he and his father were, with every likelihood that he back home had had involvement with Glasgow's pre-Association football scene on Glasgow Green,  the off-field powers of Lomas.  That is until after six championships Arnot Leslie Snr. at sixty felt it time to retire, which he did by returning, accompanied by his eldest son, to Glasgow's Southern Suburbs to a house called Argentina; the house in which he died in 1904.

Meanwhile Lomas in 1900, their season being in our summer, had dropped to second place in the Argentine League. Then the following season it was fourth of four, then five of five; this as Watson Hutton's newly promoted English High School had taken the title for the first time, before, because it was deemed advertising, changing its name to Alumni and going on to be champions for the next three years.

And in the interim Argentine, and therefore Uruguayan, international football had also emerged. There had again in 1901 been something of a dress-rehearsal with a match in May that year between the two countries but organised by Albion of Montevideo not the Argentine Football Association and therefore not regarded as official. Argentina won 3-2 away, with both Juan Anderson, as captain, and George Leslie in the eleven. But it was then followed in 1902 by a match actually regarded as the first international between the same two nations. and taking place in Montevideo once more. Argentina won again, this time 0-6 and with now William Leslie at full-back, Juan Anderson there also plus two unrelated Buchanans and and a brace of Browns, Jorge in the forward-line and Ernesto at centre-half, as The Pivot. They, the Brown boys, would be the first of seven Diasporan-Scots brothers and a cousin to play in the top-flight with six of the eight also featuring for their by then well-adopted country. The family had first arrived in Argentina in 1825.

Moreover, the six Browns and two Leslies would not be the only Scots-origin players in that same era to play for the Albiceleste, or simple the Celeste (the light-blues) as they were until 1908. In 1906 a Watson Hutton took the field for the national team, Arnold Watson Hutton, twenty-year-old son of Alex. He did so with four Browns and a Buchanan but not in the competition that had first been played the previous year, the Copa de Caridad Lipton, the Lipton Charity Cup. It had been donated, seemingly out of nowhere, by grocery-and tea-magnate, Sir Thomas Lipton but actually with a more than possible personal connection.

Lipton was a Scot. He had been born in 1848 so had been fourteen when round-ball football had arrived in his home-town, Glasgow. Indeed, he had grown up in The Gorbals, is thought as a teenager to have played football on Glasgow Green, could well have known Arnot Leslie Snr., locally and/or from the football pitch and held him in high enough esteem to have on his death wanted to mark his passing. And how and what better than with a trophy, one played for almost every year until Sir Thomas's death in 1931, irregularly until 1992 and perhaps worthy of revival, through a annual fixture between now Argentina and Scotland in celebration of just what in football terms the former owes to the latter.