Footballer
Born: December 12, 1928
Died: May 11, 2015.
JOHN Hewie, who has died aged 87 after a long battle with dementia, was a consistent presence in the Scotland football team from 1956 until 1960, winning 19 caps - mostly as a left back.
He had never been to Scotland until Dr Montgomery, the Scottish club doctor at Charlton, informed the SFA that Hewie, one of several Springboks in the Addicks' XI of the time, had Scottish parents, and was therefore eligible to play for Scotland.
Hewie, who had already played several games for England representative teams and was being groomed as a possible future England cap, was called into the Scotland B team to face England at Easter Road, on 11 March, 1953. The match ended in a 2-2 draw, but, according to the contemporary match reports, the Charlton man did not have a good game and he vanished from the thoughts of the selectors who then picked the Scotland team.
However, a stand-out performance for a South Africa XI made-up up of South African-born players from British clubs, against a Scotland XI, at Ibrox in March 1956, during which, according to one match report: "Hewie reduced (Gordon) Smith to the level of an ordinary player", put him back into contention and he duly won the first of his 19 caps, in the 1-1 draw with England, at Hampden, on 14 April, 1956.
He played well that day, setting up fellow debutant Graham Leggat to score the Scotland goal and thereafter he was a Scotland regular. He won ten straight caps over the following year, helping Scotland to qualify for the 1958 World Cup finals in Sweden.
At that tournament he played in the first match against Yugoslavia, and the third, against France. He had scored his first Scotland goal from the spot in the 4-2 win over Spain at Hampden which had opened Scotland's campaign. But, in that match against France, he hammered another penalty against the cross-bar at 0-0. The miss, he always said, preyed on his mind every day for the rest of his life, as France went on to win the game 2-1.
Charlton had been relegated at the end of season 1956-57 and, with Scotland re-building, initially under Matt Busby, Hewie was overlooked throughout the 1958-59 season, before returning to win two caps, at left-half, during the end-of-season European tour in May 1959.
He played, in his more normal left back role in the two autumn internationals of 1959, scoring his second Scotland goal against Northern Ireland, before making his final appearance in dark blue against Poland at Hampden, on May 4, 1960.
His Charlton career was long - he stands third in their all-time appearances list, with 530 matches, scoring 38 goals. He wore all 11 numbers in those days when football only used 1-11 and squad numbers were unheard of - even having a four-game (unbeaten) spell as first-choice goalkeeper, after regular custodian, the former Hearts and Scotland Under-23 keeper Willie Duff was injured during season 1961-62.
Hewie also played in what was called the most-remarkable Football Leauge match ever, on 21 December 1957, when Charlton entertained Huddersfield Town at the Valley. Town led 2-0 at half-time, then 5-1 midway through the second half, but the Addicks battled back to win 7-6.
He had left Pretoria for London in 1949, briefly returned to South Africa, for five months in 1960, but came back to the Valley, eventually leaving, after 17 years' service, in 1966.
Again he returned to South Africa, serving two years as player-manager of Arcadia Shepherds, then returning to south-east London to work for the Inner London Education Authority and manage Beley United. He went home to South Africa for a third time, again managing Arcadia, before going into business as a garage owner.
But, once more, with South Africa changing, he returned to the UK in 1994, settling in the village of Donington, Lincolnshire, where he lived out his long life.
Hewie was a sporting all-rounder. He played tennis and hockey to a good level as a youngster in South Africa, he played county-level table tennis in England, and also represented England at baseball, and, even after he was first capped by Scotland, he was picked for official FA representative teams and was one of the 54 players used by the composite London XI which was the first English team to contest a European club competition - the long-drawn-out first Inter-Cities Fairs Cup competition, which started in 1954 and finished in 1958.
He was pre-deceased last year by his wife Ruth, and is survived by son Adam, daughter Alison and their families.
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