Many years ago I bought this attractive belt buckle at an antique fair, engraved for presentation to Hugh McColl junior by the members of West End Cricket Club for the highest bowling average in 1871.
   At the time I had no idea where it came from, in fact initially I thought that West End may have referred to one of the ancestors of Newcastle United. But recently I finally uncovered the full story about Hugh McColl, and his little buckle has taken me on a fascinating journey of cricket and football from Scotland to South America.
   Thanks to the online digitisation of old newspapers and other publications, I established that West End was a Glasgow cricket club which took up football in the winter months and was one of the early members of the Scottish Football Association. McColl was not just a player at both sports, the SFA's first annual in 1875 listed him as the club contact, which was an important breakthrough as it gave his home address.

By a strange quirk, I found that Hugh McColl was later credited with being one of the pioneers of football in Chile, while his namesake Hugh MacColl had come to notice as one of the founders of Spanish football in Seville. My initial thought was that this could possibly be the same man, but it turned out to be a remarkable coincidence with a slight variation in spelling. So, who was the West End man, and how did he end up in Chile?
   Hugh McColl was born in 1852, the fifth child of Hugh McColl and Lillias Inglis Mackie who had married in 1841 and lived in Glasgow. His father was a skilled tradesman as an engine pattern maker, and the family home was in Richard Street in Anderston, now long gone but at the time a respectable area of town.
   As a young commercial clerk Hugh enjoyed cricket in his free time and around 1870 was one of the founding members of West End Cricket Club. He was clearly a decent player, as the following year he won the prize for bowling, but just how good is hard to tell as West End was a minor club whose matches rarely appeared in the press, nor did they trouble the Scottish Cricketers' Annual.
   In 1873 the club took a big step forward by securing the lease of Burnbank, the Glasgow Academicals ground on Great Western Road, and also formed a football section for the winter months. That spurred them on to join the Scottish FA, which enabled West End to enter the Scottish Cup in 1874, beating Star of Leven in the first round before going down 7-0 to the mighty Queen's Park in the second.
   They had to leave Burnbank in 1875 (with Rangers taking over the lease for a year), which appears to have prompted the cricket section to wind up, but West End carried on as a football club and took up residence at Avenue Park in Cowlairs.
   Hugh McColl was not just a player, appearing at full back, he held an integral role as club secretary for 1875-76. West End continued to enter the Scottish Cup and in 1876 they reached the third round after defeating 4th RRV and Govan, but were thrown out of the competition following a 1-1 draw with Edinburgh side Swifts, as the SFA ruled that West End must be disqualified for not scheduling the match on the due date.
   Like many clubs of the day, West End’s existence was brief. Their final Scottish Cup tie was in September 1877, a 5-1 loss to Strathclyde, and the club's last known fixture was in March 1878. They disbanded at the end of the season.
   That might have been the end of Hugh McColl's involvement with football, as he embarked on a career in the import/export trade, got married and started a family.  However, a decade later he crossed the Atlantic and set up in business in the Chilean port city of Valparaiso with his family.

There was already an established British community in Valparaiso with a long-standing cricket club, and that gave him the opportunity to resume his enthusiasm in football, which presumably had never gone away. In 1889 he was a founder of the first organised football club in Chile as an offshoot of the cricket club. Although details are sketchy it appears that Hugh McColl was a driving force, elected as its first president, one of several Scots involved on and off the field.
   The Valparaiso club took a while to settle, not helped by a civil war in 1891, then in 1892 was established as a standalone entity and began to promote football in the port city. The following year it elected a board of directors to became the first constituted football club in the country, and went on to be a founding member of the Football Association of Chile in 1895. Valparaiso was undoubtedly the most important team in the nascent football association, known simply as 'The Club' or 'The Senior Club' until the outbreak of the First World War forced it into a hiatus, as most of its players left to defend the British Empire.
   Meanwhile, Hugh McColl played an active role not just in Valparaiso but in the early development of football in Chile's capital, as he is seen in a photo of the first Santiago football eleven, which had been founded in 1893 by the Santiago Cricket and Athletic Club to play in the first intercity match between Valparaiso and Santiago. It is not clear how he was involved, and perhaps had been recruited to coach the new team. This is presently the only known photo of McColl.

Not long after, Hugh McColl and his family returned to Glasgow, having spent at least five years in Chile, with his daughter Lillias born there in 1891. Back home, he went into partnership in a shipping agency with John Crosbie Rogers (1839-1921), who had spent a long time in Chile before returning to Glasgow, where he was Chilean vice-consul. The business prospered and that meant several return trips to Valparaiso for McColl over the next two decades, as he developed trade between Chile and the UK. His company McColl and Rogers were described in the Glasgow directory as ship and insurance brokers, commission agents, export and produce merchants.
   After the War, the company became known as McColl and Sons, operating from an office in Wellington Street until his death in 1928.
   At the time, nothing was said about his role in football, and even today Hugh McColl is one of those little-known exporters of Scottish football, who learned the game at home before taking it abroad.
   He is now recognised as one of several Scots who were pioneers of Chilean football, and it is remarkable that his story has come to light thanks to a chance find at an antique fair.
 
Hugh McColl
Born 28 April 1852 in Glasgow
Died 13 October 1928 in Glasgow


With sincere thanks to Chilean football historian Sebastián Núñez Mardones for his input. Director of CEDEP, the Chilean Centre for Sports Studies, his book Selección Chilena 1910 - Duelos del Centenario is the definitive story of the first Chilean international team. 

See his comprehensive article on the early years: The background to the founding of Santiago Wanderers

Further reading:
Scots Football Worldwide - Valparaiso.
Scots Football Worldwide - Santiago.
How John Hamilton played for Chile in 1910.

There is only one family which can claim to have had three brothers playing for Scotland: Alick, James and Gladstone Hamilton all pulled on the national team shirt.
   However, the recent discovery of a fourth brother who also played international football has added to the family's claim to fame, and the reason he has escaped notice until now is that John Hamilton represented Chile.
   The Scottish veteran's three appearances for 'La Roja' in 1910, their first ever internationals, came at the end of a long career in the game that had seen him play on both sides of the border, most notably for Derby County in the English first division in 1894-95, in a forward line that featured greats such as Steve Bloomer and John Goodall.

However, Hamilton rarely hit those heights again and he soon moved on to the relative obscurity of Ilkeston Town. From that point, his clubs were mainly in the lower reaches of Scottish football at Abercorn and Queen's Park Strollers (their reserve team), and his last senior games in Britain were in 1902 for Ayr.
   A few years later, an engineering job on South America's Pacific coast gave him the opportunity to don his boots again and his solid appearances for Valparaiso earned him a selection to the Chile squad which travelled over the Andes to Buenos Aires in May 1910.
   At the age of 36 he was the oldest player as Chile's national team played together for the first time. They warmed up with a friendly against the Argentinian hosts before facing Uruguay and Argentina in the Copa Centenario Revolucion de Maya. John 'Juan' Hamilton featured in all three games, and although they all ended in defeat, Chile had arrived on the international scene.
   Although he did not play for the national team again, Hamilton was the referee in September that year when Argentina came to Chile for a return friendly.

During the tournament, a local newspaper in Buenos Aires mentioned that he was proud to join his three Scottish brothers as a football internationalist, and that little snippet set me on the trail of his story. Finding confirmation was not easy as Hamilton is a common surname, but the final proof came thanks to a Chilean football historian, Sebastián Nuñez.
   Sebastián's book Duelos del Centenario is an extraordinary feat of research into Chile's ground-breaking team of 1910, with detailed biographies of all the players, and he was able to provide me with documentation and photos that proved beyond doubt the Hamilton story.
   John Hamilton came from a remarkable football family. William Hamilton, a master builder in Glasgow, and his wife Isobel had nine sons, most of whom were footballers.

The eldest was Alexander (Alick) Hamilton who played for Rangers and Queen's Park, where he won the Scottish Cup, and was capped four times by Scotland. Three of those were against England in 1885, 1886 and 1888, while the other was against Wales, all before he was forced to retire through injury aged just 24.

John Hamilton
 
Born 12 September 1873 Glasgow
Died 27 June 1932 Glasgow
 
Football career:
Queen's Park Strollers
Derby County Nov 1894-95 (12 games 5 goals)
Ilkeston Town 1895-96
Abercorn Aug-Dec 1896
Queen's Park Strollers Jan 1897-1901
​Airdrieonians (guest, November 1897)
Ayr Parkhouse (guest, May 1901)
Ayr FC Oct 1901-02 (5 league games)
Valparaiso FC c1908-1912
 
Three appearances for Chile:
Argentina 3 Chile 1, 27 May 1910
Uruguay 3 Chile 0, 29 May 1910
Argentina 5 Chile 1, 5 June 1910 

Further information and links:
​
Scots Football Worldwide: Scottish football influence in Chile
The Long Ball blog: the origins of the Copa America 
The Men Who Made Scotland: the definitive Who's Who of Scottish internationalists

When Argentina lifted the World Cup in 2022 and retained the Copa America in 2024, the roots of their success were traced back to a Scottish pioneer, Alexander Watson Hutton.
   He overcame tragedy and challenges in his early life to be celebrated as the 'father of Argentine football' thanks to his work in establishing the game as a national obsession. Having set up a football league in 1893, then created a dominant football club, Hutton's footballing story is fairly well known (more so in Argentina than his native land, it has to be said) but his life in Scotland remains something of an enigma.
   That prompted me to research the formative years of a boy orphaned before he was five years old, his entire family wiped out by disease, who found his vocation in education and sport.
   Hutton's life events detailed below shed light on his family, childhood, school, university and early teaching career.

Family origins

Alexander Watson Hutton was the second son of Robert Hutton, a grocer, and Helen (or Ellen) Watson. His parents were originally from the Dunfermline area in Fife but Robert moved to Glasgow in the 1840s to work as a grocer at the heart of the bustling Gorbals community of Laurieston, just south of the River Clyde in Glasgow. In time he opened his own shops, first in Bedford Street, then Norfolk Street and Nicholson Street.
   Meanwhile Helen had been living with her family in Edinburgh, but after she married Robert on 12 November 1850 they set up home in the Gorbals in a tenement flat at 29 Eglinton Street. At first, everything went well: their first son, also Robert, was born in August 1851, while the grocery business prospered. Robert Hutton was able to employ shop staff and he opened a new outlet at 55 Eglinton Street, just along from the family home.

Their second son Alexander was born on 10 June 1853 at number 29, although it is no longer standing as few original buildings in that area have survived. His birthplace was demolished in the 1970s as part of the great Gorbals slum clearance which transformed (some would say destroyed) the area; it is approximately where Bridge Street Underground station now stands.
   He was baptised the following month at Eglinton Street United Secession Church, which has also gone: it was converted to a cinema in 1921 and then destroyed by fire in 1932; it is now the site of the O2 Academy.
 
Multiple tragedies
​
Fate dealt the first cruel blow to the family as Robert Hutton fell seriously ill with tuberculosis and had to give up his shops. In January 1855 he moved with his wife and sons to live near Helen's family in Edinburgh, but it was a lost cause and he died there on 25 February. In an extraordinary twist of fate, the following day Helen gave birth to their third son, George.
   Alexander, then just 20 months old, would never return to Glasgow as his father's death marked the start of a series of tragedies to hit the family. Younger brother George died aged 2 in May 1857, then his mother succumbed in January 1858, both from tuberculosis. They were buried together with Robert at Warriston Cemetery, although there is no headstone.
   This left Alexander and his brother Robert as orphans, and they were taken under the wing of their grandmother (Helen's mother), Helen Bowman Watson who lived in Logie Green in Edinburgh. Sadly, the arrangement did not last long as she too died of tuberculosis early in 1862.

On his ninth birthday in 1862, Alexander followed Robert into Daniel Stewart's Hospital, which was then a charitable boarding school for about 60 destitute boys. When he was admitted school records show that he 'could read words of two syllables easily' while his 'cautioner' was his uncle, George Hutton of Cupar.
   The Hutton brothers did well at the school, with Robert being a medallist in 1866, and Alexander was never to forget its positive influence; in the 1920s he endowed the Robert Hutton Prize for Modern Languages in memory of his brother, and also created a similar prize in his own name at George Watson's College.
   Alexander left Daniel Stewart's in 1867 when he turned 14, with a solid grounding that would enable him to embark on adult life. He is recorded in the 1871 census as an apprentice grocer - the same trade as his father - but then switched his focus to education. That may have been prompted by the death of his brother Robert, who had been living with his uncle George in Cupar where he worked as a clerk but succumbed to tuberculosis and died in October 1871. Alexander was now the only survivor of the entire family.

Alexander appears to have taken a teaching diploma as by 1874 he was advertising his services as a teacher of shorthand and in December was appointed to a full-time post at George Watson's College Junior School. Perhaps it helped his application that the headmaster of Watson's was George Ogilvie, who had been head teacher of Daniel Stewart's Hospital during his time there. Regardless, he had found his vocation and he would flourish in the role.
 
A new family

Equally importantly, he also found a new family in Edinburgh.
   By 1871 he was lodging in Brown Square, off Chambers Street, with Mrs Alexandrina Waters and her children Elizabeth, Catherine and William. Alexander became so close to the Waters family that when they moved in 1874 to 4 St Patrick Square, he joined them there and remained in the household until he emigrated. 
   After he went to Argentina the Waters family followed on and their lives remained intertwined in work, football and marriage: the teaching staff at the Buenos Aires English High School included Elizabeth and William, Mrs Waters was later on the staff as a house superintendent, and Catherine became his second wife.
 
University degree
 
Despite holding down a teaching job at George Watson's, Alexander was determined to further his own education and in 1877 he embarked on a four year Arts degree at Edinburgh University. It must have been a challenge to combine work with study, but he was helped by winning the Dundas Bursary which provided about £20 a year to fund his course.
   His progress at the university can be followed by the class results published in The Scotsman: in April 1878 he passed his exams in Mathematics, a year later in Mental Philosophy, then in 1881 he graduated with an MA in Philosophy, gaining Second Class Honours.

Eager to progress as a teacher now that he was better qualified, the opportunity came in November 1881 when a small advert appeared in The Scotsman: 'Headmaster wanted for the Scotch School in Buenos Ayres. Guaranteed salary £450 per annum.' He made an application to Professor SS Laurie of Edinburgh University and Alexander soon heard he had been appointed to the role that would change his life.
    Before he left, however, he needed a recruit. In December he placed his own advert for a female teacher to join the Scotch School as Infant, Junior and Sewing Mistress. The job went to Margaret Budge, also a teacher at George Watson's, and as he went on to marry her, the suspicion is that they were already close and he used the opportunity to ensure she could travel out with him.
   The last mention of Alexander in the local press came in mid-January when he advertised for sale a 50 inch Hillman & Herbert 'Premier' bicycle, which conjures up images of this pioneer riding round the streets of Edinburgh on his penny-farthing.
   Leaving his life in Scotland behind, he set sail for Argentina, arriving in Buenos Aires on 25 February 1882 to start work.
 
Football in Scotland
 
Despite uncovering so much detail of his early life, there is one thing missing: football. A detailed search of the Scottish press has so far failed to turn up any mention of him taking part in a football match, or indeed any kind of sport. Later interviews he gave in Argentina simply said that he played football as a young man in Scotland without giving any specifics, so he may have been enthusiastic but he was clearly not a top level player.
   In some respects it is curious that he was so passionate about football after an Edinburgh upbringing (he had no real connection to Glasgow apart from his birth). During his schooldays at Daniel Stewart’s there was no organised recreation for the boys, while George Watson's did have a sporting ethos but the emphasis was on rugby in the winter and athletics and cricket in summer. As he taught at the junior school, presumably he supervised recreation for the boys in his charge, but he had no recorded involvement in school sporting activities or team games.

​Life in Argentina
 
After two years at the Scotch School he left to found the English High School in 1884 where he had the opportunity to encourage sport for the pupils. He built an open air swimming pool and is said to have imported the first leather footballs to the country.
   In a lengthy interview he gave to El Grafico in 1933 to mark his 80th birthday, 'Alejandro' reminisced about the early days, and told how the balls were impounded by customs officials who demanded to know what they were for.
   That may have coincided with the arrival of William Waters to work at the school, which some accounts date to the summer of 1886 although he was already a member of staff the previous year. Born in 1865, William (known as Guillermo) certainly made an impact on the football field as he went on to captain St Andrews, winners of the country's first league competition, before his early demise in 1906.
    Also on the school staff was Margaret Budge, who Alexander married on 27 March 1885 at St Andrew's Church in Buenos Aires. They had three children: Arnold Pencliffe Watson Hutton 1886-1951 (who became a prominent footballer and an Argentina international), Edith Elena Watson Hutton 1888-1971 (married name Stocks), and Mabel Lilian Watson Hutton 1890-1979 (married name Mitchell).
   Margaret died in August 1893 of pancreatic cancer and Alexander remarried Catherine (or Kate) Waters on 19 June 1902, with no further children.
   By the time of his retirement from teaching in 1910, the English High School was said to be the largest, the best ventilated and the healthiest private school in Buenos Aires.
   While he remained in Buenos Aires, he retained close links to Scotland and returned several times for visits. He died on 9 March 1936, age 82, and was buried in British Cemetery at Chacarita, where his grave remains a place of pilgrimage for football fans.

Football legacy
 
Hutton's legacy as the 'father of Argentine football' relates to his prominent role in establishing the sport on a sound footing. In February 1893 he was appointed President of the relaunched Argentine Association Football League (an earlier attempt in 1891 had foundered with the death of the President, Frank Woolley), which later became the Argentine Football Association. Then in 1898 he backed the foundation of the English High School football team (later Alumni) which won the First Division ten times by 1910 before it was disbanded.
   The football fame of Alexander Watson Hutton belongs to his adopted country, and his impact can be explored in more detail through the links posted below. But his story really started back home in Scotland, and I hope this research contributes to a better understanding of the challenges he overcame. 

Further links and research
 
A film of his life, Escuela de Campeones, was made in 1950 (see poster below) and is available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmU3nD3y4Pc
 
A new book Alumni - El Mito [The Mythical Alumni] tells the story of Hutton's football club. Superbly illustrated, it is published in Argentina by Martin Emanuel de Vita who has made it available as a free download: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/3c5bfe5b66.html
 
Hutton first came to national notice in Scotland thanks to Dan Brennan's article in The Scotsman in 2008: https://www.scotsman.com/sport/argentine-football-returns-to-roots-of-its-scottish-founder-2474037
 
Scots Football Worldwide has a detailed account of Hutton and the other Scots who brought football to Argentina: https://www.scotsfootballworldwide.scot/argentina
 
In 2023 adidas launched the Argentum 1893 as the official ball in Argentina, in celebration of Hutton's legacy (pictured above). You can watch a short promo video here: https://x.com/GustavoYarroch/status/1691446667709390849
 
A memorial plaque, donated by the Argentina Football Association, is on display in the Scottish Football Museum: www.scottishfa.co.uk/news/the-scottish-trailblazer-who-paved-the-way-for-maradona-and-messi/
 
Alexander Watson Hutton is also commemorated on the Scottish Diaspora Tapestry: https://www.scottishdiasporatapestry.org/au03-alexander-watson-hutton/

A truly remarkable coincidence has brought together my own family history and the life of a Uruguayan football legend, a Scotsman called John Harley. 
   I was recently discussing with fellow historians the proposal to build a statue to John Harley at his birthplace in Cathcart, to the south of Glasgow. A fundraising campaign has now been launched to pay for a fitting memorial (see below).
   Although little known in Scotland, Harley is celebrated as 'El Reformador' in Uruguay for his influence in changing the style of the game there from the long ball to short passing in the traditional Scottish manner. It is a transition that is credited with taking Uruguay to two Olympic titles in 1924 and 1928, then to two World Cups in 1930 and 1950.
   On learning that Harley was born in Cathcart in 1886, a light bulb went on in my head as I recalled that my own grandfather, John Fowler Mitchell, was also born in 1886 and lived in Cathcart. I knew that somewhere in the family archive were some old school photos, and after a lengthy rummage I found no less than four class groups taken in the 1890s. Every single one of them features not only my grandfather but also a young John Harley. 
   The images on the four cabinet photos are still sharp, taken outside Cathcart Public School. And on the back of the cards, my prescient grandfather had taken the trouble to write down the names of everyone he could remember, creating a fantastic record of late Victorian schooling.

The earliest picture is dated June 1891 and shows the infant class of 4- and 5-year-old boys and girls with their teacher, Miss Minnie Christie. It was known as the 'tuppeny class' as the parents paid twopence a week for the children to attend. John Harley is sitting in the front row, wearing a sailor suit, and what makes this particularly interesting is that two months earlier he was recorded in the 1891 census as a patient at the Victoria Infirmary. Whatever was wrong with him, he had clearly recovered sufficiently to go to school by this time.

There are further class photos from 1893, 1895 and 1896, all of which include boys only, because they were taught separately from the girls.
   In each case, my grandfather wrote 'Jock' rather than John Harley which indicates he was on friendly terms. And that can be backed up by the fact that they lived in the same street, Holmhead Crescent - the Harleys at number 2, the Mitchells at number 6.
   Very likely they enjoyed football together. I have a recording of my grandfather talking about his childhood where he says one of his favourite activities was playing football in the street ('there wasn't much traffic then'), and I also recall him telling me that, as a boy, he sneaked into Hampden to watch Queen's Park take on the famous Corinthians.

From schooldays in Cathcart, their lives took different paths, to opposite sides of the world.
   Harley embarked on a career in railway engineering which took him to Springburn in north Glasgow, then to Argentina and finally Uruguay, where he spent the rest of his life. Others have researched and written about his life and football career, and a great place to start is the Scots Football Historians Group website.
   My grandfather, on the other hand, went on to secondary school at Allan Glen's in Glasgow before university in London and Glasgow, and a career in the Indian Civil Service. He did carry on playing football but it was of the rugby variety, appearing for his university teams. He died in 1984, aged 97. 

The move for a permanent memorial to John Harley has now been launched with an ambitious crowdfunding campaign. It will need private and corporate donations, as the aim is to raise £35,000 for a statue or bust near Harley's birthplace.
   The immediate area around Braehead in Cathcart has changed little since he was born there on 5 March 1886, next to the picturesque bridge where his grandfather worked at the Old Snuff Mill.
   A tribute to John Harley in Cathcart would celebrate his influence, like so many other 'Scotch professors', in taking Scottish football around the world. 

He was a Scottish football coach who managed teams in Spain, Uruguay, Mexico and Argentina. He won trophies and was held in high regard, but almost nobody in this country has heard of William Raeside.
   I first came across him when I wrote my recent blog about the Scottish players who spent the 1946-47 season in Mexico. He has a fascinating story, but working out Raeside's football career has proved quite a challenge: he changed his name, knocked years off his age, exaggerated his achievements and had long periods out of football.
   I can find no record of Raeside until he was announced in the summer of 1927 as the new coach of Celta Vigo in north-west Spain. He was then aged 35 and the club outlined an impressive background as player and coach: 'He played for 11 years with Hibernian, South Shields, Darlington and others. Later he was trainer of Hibernian and then, as a professor of athleticism for Charles Durning at St Mirren. He was instructor at Glasgow University and then trainer of four Norwegian clubs – one of whom he took to the final of the Norwegian championship. He comes with excellent references, including from Celtic and Motherwell.'
   The trouble is, I have been unable to verify any of these claims, or indeed any football pedigree as player or trainer. There is perhaps some truth in it, for example he may well have been an assistant to Charles Durning, who was trainer of St Mirren 1911-19 and subsequently athletics coach at Glasgow University, but there is no hard evidence. He certainly didn't make any first team appearances as a player.

Nonetheless, he was a success at Celta Vigo: his team won the championship of Galicia for 1927-28, and the club was disappointed when he left them after a year.
   Yet what makes his story particularly curious is that Raeside took the Celta Vigo job under a false name, WH Cowan. And that takes some explaining.
   Born in Paisley in 1892, William Raeside was brought up in the city, where he worked as a steel cutter, which probably saved him from being called up in the first war. He married Jane Gerrard in 1911 and they had two daughters.
   However, he separated from his wife and by 1920 was living in Edinburgh when he fathered the first of five children by Jessie Cowan Scobie. Her middle name is significant as he used it to change his identity, and perhaps to evade his first wife, who divorced him in 1928 claiming 'address unknown'. At the time, he was coaching Celta Vigo as WH Cowan, and later that year he had a son who was registered with that surname, and Raeside even signed the register as William R Cowan. That subterfuge was only corrected years later, in 1946, with the aid of a sheriff.
   Following his year in Vigo, Raeside returned to Glasgow to work as an accountant, reverted to his own surname and married Jessie in 1930. Throughout this time, he was described on all the birth and marriage certificates as a clerk or accountant. Interestingly, however, on similar certificates relating to his children, many years later, his occupation was given as football trainer or athletic coach. It is a good example of how family records can help to build up a life story with their snippets of information.
   There is no record of Raeside having any further football involvement until the summer of 1937, when Millington Drake, a British diplomat in Montevideo, was asked by the president of Nacional to find him a coach who would improve Uruguayan football 'by the influence of English technique and training systems.' Somehow Drake was put in touch with Raeside, whose ability to speak Spanish must have helped, and he duly crossed the Atlantic in November 1937 to take up the position.
   He spent a year coaching Nacional, assisted by Hector Castro, a World Cup winner with Uruguay in 1930, and they are credited with laying the foundations for the great Nacional team which Castro led to five straight championship titles. The first signs of that success came early in 1938 when Nacional won the Gold Cup, formally known as the Torneo Internacional Nocturno, played between the ten best teams from Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Rosario and La Plata. It included a memorable 2-1 away win at Estudiantes on 19 February 1938, in a bitterly hostile atmosphere known as 'the match of the bloodstained shirts'.
   Raeside (also known as Reaside) decided to return home in October 1938, reportedly to become a scout for Arsenal, prompting mass demonstrations from fans who wanted him to stay.

Again there was a fallow period before his next overseas appointment with Asturias in Mexico City, coaching the team for the 1945-46 season in the Mexican Liga Mayor. They finished tenth out of 16, a disappointment after winning the league two years earlier, but he remained with the club for a second season having recruited three Scottish players, including Jackie Milne as coach.
   In 1947 he was on the move again, this time to Argentina, taking charge of Newell's Old Boys in Rosario. It was not a great success as Newell's did not win any of their first ten games, in fact they only won seven out of 30 all season, and ended the season in 11th place in the Argentina Primera Division. 
   He appears to have suggested recruiting Scottish players, as in 1948 Newell's had three Scots in their ranks: Willie Kilpatrick (ex-Chelsea, Dunfermline and others) was joined by two inexperienced juniors from Renfrew, Stewart McCallum and Donald McDonald. Former Celtic striker Joe Rae also signed up but then bought himself out of the contract. By all accounts, the Scots were not a great success, but by then Raeside had returned home. 

 
With thanks to the following sources:
​
Celta Vigo: http://yoentrenealcelta.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/wh-cowan.html

Nacional: http://www.nacionalenargentina.com.ar/una-gesta-unica-y-heroica-el-campeonato-nocturno-rioplatense/

Newell’s Old Boys: http://anotandofutbol.blogspot.com/2018/02/newells-old-boys-parte-2.html

Newell’s Old Boys: https://nobhomenaje.blogspot.com/2017/05/quinteto-ofensivo-1947.html

Chivas Guadalajara: https://www.facebook.com/Datos.Chivas/

British Newspaper Archive: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/

The anecdote about Millington Drake in 1937 is from Scoring for Britain by Peter J Beck (1999).