Most posts are about something that doesnt work ,This is about
something that works but shouldn't work
I have read in many places the vlookup only works with first column
data -but I have tried it with other columns and it seems to work -

What are the real rules for Vlookup ?

This is the Look up array

001 John
002 Fred
003 Albert

Tables to lookup
Example 1

Person Year City Vlookup Result
001 2009 London John
002 2000 Paris Fred
003 2001 Tokyo Albert
001 2003 Madrid John

= VLOOKUP(A2,Array,2,FALSE) works

Example 2

Year Person City Vlookup Result
2009 001 London John
2000 002 Paris Fred
2001 003 Tokyo Albert
2003 001 Madrid John

= VLOOKUP(B2,Array,2,FALSE) works


Example 3

Year City Person Vlookup Result
2009 London 001 John
2000 Paris 002 Fred
2001 Tokyo 003 Albert
2003 Madrid 001 John

= VLOOKUP(C2,Array,2,FALSE) works

Unless I am totally confused I thought it will only work for example
no 1
ie data in A column