That three men, three Scots, Robert Reid, Andrew Gemmell and David Scott, were in 1894 in the port city of Valparaiso founders and, as Treasurer, Secretary and President respectively,  first office-holders of the Chilean Football Federation is known and undoubted. But now more research from the country has cast up another name as Honorary President, Peter (Pedro) Ewing, and the knowledge from Chilean records that he is described as a Scot and would appear to be the son of one.

Moreover, just a year later in 1895 a Peter Ewing, again described as a Scot, arrived with his Chilean wife, Graciana, for a stay in New York. He was a merchant, aged fifty-four, so born in 1840-41. And the details match a Pedro Ewing, again a Scot, who would die in Portales, a suburb of the Chilean capital, in 1912 with the additional information that he was seventy-one, a widower, his wife having been Graciana nee Acuna, that he was buried in the city's Protestant cemetery and, Chilean-style, that his father's name was Archibaldo and his mother's Isabel "MacLearn", perhaps McLean. And a Pedro Ewing McLean is also shown in 1885 as having married a Graciana, a Graciana Acuna, again in Portales, with his father's name  given as Archibald, his mother's once more as Isabel and one of the witnesses another Scot, Robert Russell. Moreover, said Pedro and Graciana were from 1868 to have had at least five sons, all Chilean-born, Victor, Pedro, Jorje (Jorge), Alfredo and Roberto, with Victor, becoming Chilean Military Attache in Washington D.C. and Jorje, a decade later, to be a key figure in the foundation of organised football in Santiago itself. 

However, the fly in this ointment of information is that there is no obvious record of a Peter Ewing, born in Scotland in or near either of the years in question with an Archibald father and an Isabel McLean as a mother. Nor is there even a marriage of two such parents. But there is in 1841 one Ewing family recorded with an Archie, not an Isabel but an Isabella and a young child of the right age. Moreover, they live in Bonhill in Dunbartonshire, soon enough post 1872 to become a centre of footballing activity in the Auld country. But there is a problem. The wee boy's name is James. 

So the search turns to Peter Ewings more generally but born still in Scotland in about 1840 with an Archibald as a father and one stands out. He was born in St. Ninians by Stirling but at the age of nine he and the family were staying in Glasgow, his father a currier. And nineteen in 1861 he is an himself an apprentice currier. However, in 1871, whilst the parents are still in Glasgow, he is not. In fact he disappears from the Scottish, indeed British records with the possibility he might have found his way to Chile and a new life away from leather.

But again there is a problem. His mother is an Elizabeth McLaren, which is close to Isabel McLearn or McLean but perhaps not close enough. So for the moment, whilst we know the origins of Chilean football in Valparaiso had not three but also a fourth man, probably also a Scot, and in Santiago  one of his sons would carry the flame still further, we are in reality, apart from little more than a name, no closer to knowing his back story in the way we know those of his colleagues and compatriots.