Thanks once more to the efforts of the inestimable Andy Mitchell the spot-light can be turned once more on the mystery that has been the unsung, except by me, pioneer of Argentine football, Alex Lamont. I had known (See "In Search of Alex Lamont - First Try") that said Alex had been born in about 1870. That was clear from ships manifests that mark his arrivals and departures as a clerk, a banker, a banker's clerk, et al from both Argentina and Brazil between 1890 and at least 1900. And those same indications had pointed me to a relatively small number of Alexes that fitted the bill here in Scotland, including one in Kilfinan in Argyll. But I got no further, which is where Andy has stepped in.

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He has pointed me to the death of an Alexander Lamont in 1927 in Johannesburg, South Africa, since found to be more precisely 156, Prairie St., Rosettenville. He has even done the same for the grave. It is in Brixton Cemetery. Moreover, the deceased was fifty-seven years old, so born in 1870 and had been working with the city's Engineer's Department as an accountant, a logical progression from a young clerk.  Furthermore he had married. His wife was the former Edith May Pope. They were wed in 1903 in Durban, where she was living, although she was born in 1867, in Glasgow and the family had lived in St. Andrews, her mother Scots and her father an English, Wesleyan minister. Alex was living in Johannesburg, describing himself as a banker.

But let us at this moment take a step back to Scotland. In 1881 a Colin, and Elizabeth, Lamont are living in Port Bannatyne on the island of Bute. He has a butcher's shop. An Alex, one of six children, is aged  eleven and still at school. Moreover in 1891 the family is still there but Alex is not. And in 1871 that same Alex had been one year old and the family living at Millhouse, probably the village in the parish of Kilfinnan on the Cowal, but six miles down the road. His father was a Carter to a Grocer. And said Alex is recorded as born in Kilfinan parish just a year earlier, so probably also in Millhouse, to Elizabeth MacNichol and specifically not to Colin but "Coll" Lamont for, importantly, there would be another Coll Lamont, who would come into this World and almost eight and half thousand miles away. On 11th June 1905 in Johannesburg, South Africa Edith Lamont nee Pope gave birth to a son, Coll Alistair, with the contention from me and Andy that he was named for his grandfather, for, as Alexander Lamont of Johannesburg is specifically mentioned in Bute's Coll Lamont Snr's will, grandfather he certainly was. Indeed Coll Jnr, his mother and his father can be seen travelling back and forth to the UK. In early-ish 1906 it was Alex on his own, a clerk, in 3rd Class. His mother had died in 1905. And in 1910-11 Edith makes the return trip, this time with "Cole" A. Both she and Alex still had family in Britain. Whilst brother John Lamont would take himself off to New Zealand and sister, Eliza, to Canada, Maggie would stay on Bute, Hugh eventually in Aberdeen and Archie briefly in Paisley before also returning home.

Of course still none of this proves conclusively that Johannesburg Alexander Lamont was Buenos Aires Alex Lamont but there are important positives. Firstly, it eliminates the possibility that the Kilfinnan Alex drowned off Orkney. Secondly, the timings work. Four years, the same standard contract length that my own grandfather enjoyed in Minas Gerais, might have been followed by four, perhaps eight more in Brazil taking us to 1902, then a chance to head for Africa's southern tip. Perhaps someone there, in Scotland, Canada or elsewhere might read this and set us right; Diasporan family perhaps. Edith Lamont's passing would in 1949 and still in Johannesburg. She is buried with her husband. Alex. Coll Lamont Jnr, who would also work as an accountant and die in 1970, still in the city on the High Veld. And he would marry Margaret Dunlop Maxwell, also Scots to her core, who would outlive him by a decade but, it seems, with him have two children. The suggestion is they were a boy and a girl, both unnamed. So again perhaps they or their children or even their children's children might just read this, know the grave, see Alex's Argentine picture, recognise, respond and, in doing so, put us and World football out of our collective "mystery", the all-important question being did grandfather or great-grandfather or even great-great grandfather before South Africa spend time in South America?.