Argentine football returns to roots of its Scottish founder

ARGENTINA'S match at Hampden on Wednesday will stir echoes of the past, and not just for Diego Maradona, who scored his first international goal at the ground 29 years ago. In a very real sense, Argentinian football as a whole will be returning to its roots.

To be precise, those roots can be traced to two miles from Hampden Park, at the spot once occupied by 29 Eglinton Street in the Gorbals. It was there, on 10 June 1853, that Alexander Watson Hutton, the man acknowledged as 'the father of Argentinian football' was born.

Until now, many details of Watson Hutton's life have never been told, and The Scotsman can reveal that the sporting dynasty that he created lives on to this day, five generations on. He was just the most famous protagonist in a packed cast of Scots and their descendants who played a fundamental role in the formative years of Argentinian football.

The influence continues to the present day. In the 1986 World Cup final, the scorer of the first goal in Argentina's 3-2 win against West Germany was Jose Luis Brown, direct descendant of a Scot who set sail for Buenos Aires in 1825. Brown is tipped to become one of Maradona's new coaching assistants.

There is also Carlos Javier MacAllister, who not so long ago in 1994 was a diminutive ginger-headed left-back who helped Argentina reach the 1994 World Cup finals. MacAllister's roots are in Fife.

The kingdom is also home to Watson Hutton. Alexander's parents, Robert and Ellen, were Fifers from humble agricultural and coalmining families, who moved to Glasgow in the 1840s, where Robert did well enough to establish himself as a grocer. However, after the family relocated to Edinburgh soon after Alexander's birth, his story took a tragic turn. In the space of three years, he lost both of his parents, while his two year old brother died of consumption.

The five-year old Alexander was sent to live with his maternal grandmother, Helen Bowman, at Logie Green. When she too passed away in 1862, he was taken in by the Daniel Stewart Hospital School (an early precursor to Stewart Melvilles College), which, in 1855, had decreed a short-lived policy to provide free education and board to the needy.

This undoubtedly saved him from a life of destitution, and taught him the transformational powers of education. By 1872, he was at the University of Edinburgh. It took him the best part of a decade to complete his studies, as he had to pay his way, and he graduated with a second class degree in philosophy in 1881. In the meantime, he had discovered his vocation at George Watson's College, where, from 1774 he was employed as a 'general teacher', running a class that was, in the words of the principal, "a model of excellence."

By this stage he was living as a lodger in the home of a widow Alexandrina Waters and her three children at 4 St Patrick Square in Newington. This incidental biographical detail was to have significant consequences, both for Alexander's personal life and for Argentinian football.

Watson Hutton's desire to build a new life for himself abroad may well have been borne out of anxieties over his health, something brought into sharp focus when his older brother, Robert also died of consumption in 1871. In 1880, he was offered a position as rector at the St Andrews Scotch School in Buenos Aires, which had been founded by the first wave of Scottish settlers in 1838 (it still exists today). Setting sail from Liverpool in late 1881, he arrived in Argentina on 25 February 1882, and took up his new position two months later. Perhaps influenced by the tragedies that had befallen his brothers, Hutton was evangelical in his commitment to physical education, and passionate about the nascent sport of association football.

At a time when rugby was the sport of choice among Argentina's expatriate community, his efforts to teach "the animalistic game of football" were not universally welcomed. A year into his tenure, he fell out with the school's board over his insistence that football and physical education generally be given more prominence. When they refused his request for a gym and playing field, he left to found his own school.

The English High School of Buenos Aires opened its doors on 2 February 1884. By 1886, Hutton had 50 boarders and 500 day pupils, and football was at the heart of the curriculum. Such was the school's success that he had to move to bigger premises. His personal life was also flourishing. In March 1885, at the St Andrews Presbyterian Church in Buenos Aires, Hutton married Margaret Budge, a former elementary class teacher from George Watson's – and the following year the first of their three children, Arnold, was born.

On 27 July 1886, another person from his Edinburgh past resurfaced in Argentina. William Waters, son of Hutton's old landlady, stepped off the SS Caxton in Buenos Aires to take up a position at the English High School, bringing with him a bag of leather footballs. Waters eventually went on to become a successful importer of sporting goods to South America. But before that he made his mark on the pitch.

In 1891, a group of migrs, including another Scot Alec Lamont, a teacher at St Andrews school and a keen footballer, gathered together five teams – Old Caledonians, Buenos Aires and Rosario Railways, Buenos Aires Football Club, Belgrano Football Club and St Andrews Scotch Athletic Club – under the aegis of the Argentine Association Football League (AAFL). William 'Guillermo' Waters was captain and coach of St Andrews, who won what was the first ever league tournament staged anywhere outside Britain.

As the name suggests, the first Argentinian champions were made up entirely of Scots, as was the team that they pipped to the title, Old Caledonians, who featured employees of a British plumbing company, Bautaume & Peason, which was laying a new sewage system in Buenos Aires.

However, due to lack of funds and poor management the league collapsed in 1892. It was left to Hutton to pick up the pieces. Utilising all of his administrative and organisational skills he relaunched the AAFL on 21 February 1893. His revamped body is regarded as South America's first proper national football association, and the eighth oldest in the world.

Hutton remained as president of the AAFL until 1896, occasionally doubling up as a referee, and all the while overseeing the development of the English High School. His plans to spread the footballing gospel were given a major boost on 18 April 1898, when the Argentinian Ministry of Justice and Public Education passed a law making physical education mandatory in all schools.

Hutton took full advantage. Having acquired a sports field in the north of Buenos Aires, he founded the Club Atltico English High School for pupils, ex-pupils and teachers. The following year, the club's football team took its bow in the new second division of the AAFL, finishing one point behind winners Banfield. Over the next decade, English High School CA, or Alumni as they became two years later, became the dominant force in Argentinian football, winning the first division title 10 times between 1900 and 1911.

In 1902, a further strand of Hutton's football legacy was added, when Alexander's son Arnold made his debut on the left wing for Alumni. After his sporting career was interrupted by studies in Europe – he started but never completed a medicine degree at the University of Edinburgh – 'Arnoldo' Hutton played a prominent role in some of Alumni's greatest triumphs. In 1906 he featured in the first ever international club match, as Alumni defeated the South African national team 1-0 in front of a crowd of 12,000, while in 1910 he finished as the league's top scorer, with 13 goals. He also represented Argentina at polo and cricket.

At this point, another son of the Gorbals entered the story: Thomas Lipton, the famous tea magnate, was born a couple of streets away from Hutton in 1848, and it is more than likely that the two families, both running grocery stores in the Gorbals, would have known each other. By the turn of the century, Lipton was already a multimillionaire with a burgeoning retail and tea empire, and in 1906 he agreed to fund the Copa Lipton, an annual encounter between Argentina and neighbours Uruguay, which continued for several decades and was revived most recently in 1992.

Arnoldo Watson Hutton scored in the second Copa Lipton as Argentina ran out 2-0 winners. He was also on the scoresheet when Argentina overcame Uruguay and Chile to lift the Copa Centenario in 1910, which was staged to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Argentina's 1810 revolution, and the precursor to the Copa America.

On several occasions, Arnoldo lined up for Argentina with his brother-in-law Wilfred – later known as Wilfredo – Stocks, a Nottingham-born centre forward who emigrated to South America with his family and ended up marrying Alexander Watson Hutton's eldest daughter Edith. However, it was another clan, the Browns, who were the dominant force in the national team in the first decade of the 20th century.

On 11 August 1825, James Brown was one of 220 Scots on board the Symmetry, one of several ships that left Leith and Greenock for Buenos Aires that year. Their passage had been paid by two Roxburghshire-born landowners, John and William Parish Robertson, who, with the consent of the Argentinian government, set out to establish an 'experimental agricultural colony' at Monte Grande, outside Buenos Aires.

Four years later the experiment had failed, but many of the original settlers went on to prosper. Brown like many other "hardy sons of rustic toil" hailing largely from the south and west of Scotland, became a successful farmer. The youngest of his offspring, also James, went on to father nine sons, no less than seven of whom – Jorge Gibson, Ernesto, Eliseo, Alfredo, Carlos Carr, Tomas and Diego Hope Brown – featured for Hutton's Alumni team. The first five also played regularly for Argentina, as did their cousin Juan Domingo Brown.

The Browns helped ensure that Alumni dominated the club scene until 1910. However from 1906 onwards there were already signs of change. Until then, the board of the AFA had been entirely made up of British and Irish emigres, the official language was English, and there was a general policy of excluding the 'creole' population. Watson Hutton began to focus more of his energies on the running of his school. When he retired in 1912, Alumni Athletic Club was disbanded, marking the end of the 'British Period' of Argentinian football, and the ascendancy of ftbol criollo (creole football). Already by the following year more familiar names such as Boca Juniors, River Plate and the first of the great 'creole' clubs, Racing Club, were coming to the fore, and the Scottish names on the teamsheets were being replaced by Hispanic ones.

Nonetheless, clues to Argentinian football's Caledonian roots continue to surface to this day, with the aforementioned Brown and MacAllister prime examples.

Alexander Watson Hutton died on 9 March 1936, and was buried at the British Cemetery at Chacarita. His role in the development of Argentinian football has not been forgotten. The library at the Argentinian Football Association is named in his honour, while a popular 1950 feature film, Escuela de Campeones (School of Champions], brought the story of Hutton and the Alumni team to the silver screen.

Meanwhile, the Hutton family's influence on Argentinian sport lives on today – although not in football. His grandson Gilbert Stocks played cricket for Argentina, as did his great grandson Peter Rodrigo Stocks, current vice president of the Argentinian Cricket Association. But when Maradona leads the national side to Hampden on Wednesday, the spirit of Alexander Watson Hutton's passion for football will come alive once more in the city where it was born.

Argentina's Scottish connection

A HOST of Scots have made an impact in Argentine club football, as the following list testifies.

WILLIAM WATERS (1866 - unknown)

Captain and coach of the St Andrews Athletic Club team that won Argentina's first ever league championship in 1891. Persuaded to come out to Argentina five years earlier by Hutton, who had boarded with his family in Edinburgh, and became Hutton's brother in law in 1902.

JORGE GIBSON BROWN (1880-1936)

The most famous of the seven ball-playing Brown brothers. Known as 'El Patriarcho' ('The Patriarch'), he featured in all ten of Alumni's league title wins between 1900 and 1911, and earned 23 caps for Argentina.

ERNESTO BROWN (1885-1935)

Known as El Pacifico ('the Calm One') for his assured performances for Alumni and Argentina at left-back. The five other Brown siblings were Eliseo (born 1888), Carlos Carr (1882), Tomas (1884), Diego Hope (1875), and Alfredo (1886). Together with their cousin Juan Domingo, they featured with varying regularity during Alumni's golden age of 1900-1911. Eliseo, Alfredo and Juan Domingo also played for Argentina.

ARNOLD PENCLIFFE WATSON HUTTON (1887-1951)

The son of Alexander Watson Hutton son, who went on to play for Alumni, Belgrano Athletic and Argentina at outside left. He won 17 caps, scoring six goals, and claimed several league titles with Alumni, finishing top scorer in the Argentinian league in 1910.

THOMAS LIPTON (1848-1931)

The Gorbals-born tea magnate who gave his name and funds to the Copa Lipton, the annual showdown between Argentina and neighbours Uruguay, and which began in 1906 and was most recently played in 1992.

REVEREND JOSEPH T STEVENSON

Presbyterian preacher of Scottish descent who founded the Quilmes Rovers Club in 1887. The club still exists today as Quilmes Atletico Club, making it the oldest club in Argentina. The first team featured Scots Alex Lamont, LC Penman, R Muir and D Moffat.

JOSE LUIS BROWN (1956 - )

A direct descendant of the original James Brown, who scored one of Argentina's goals in the 3-2 1986 World Cup final victory over West Germany. Is currently a candidate to become one of Diego Maradona's coaching assistants with the national team.

CARLOS JAVIER MACALLISTER (1968 - )

The left-back, whose ginger hair and surname betrayed his roots, earned three caps helping Argentina qualify for the 1994 World Cup. He played for Argentino Juniors, Racing Club and Boca Juniors, for whom he scored the winning goal in Argentina's Gold Cup in 1992. In 1998, he and his brother Patricio founded their own academy, the MacAllister Sports Club.