SA’s World Cup trailblazer
JOHN Hewie, the first South African to play in a soccer World Cup final and one of the boyhood heroes of Manchester United’s famous manager Alex Ferguson, has died at the age of 87 at a nursing home in the UK.
Hewie, who was born in Pretoria, played for Scotland at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, but the experience turned into a bitter one when he missed a decisive penalty against France.
It haunted him for more than half a century and he admitted that not a week went by that he did not wince at the memory.
He was among a wave of South Africans who went across to England soon after the end of World War 2 to play for Charlton Athletic. He spent 19 years at the London club.
Hewie was a left-back by trade, but versatility was the name of the game for him and in the English league he played nine of the 11 possible positions in soccer, including goalkeeper.
Charlton Athletic had a Scottish doctor and it was he who alerted the Scottish Football Association that Hewie was eligible to play for them because his father had been born in Selkirk.
Hewie’s first ever trip to Scotland was to Edinburgh to play for Scotland B against England MISSED CHANCE: John Hewie in a 1954 photo taken while he was playing in the UK in March 1953. But it was not a very successful debut and made little impression on the Scots, who then ignored him for the next three years.
Ironically, it was in South African colours that his international career took off again. He played for a South African team made up of UK-based professionals against a Scotland XI at Ibrox in 1956 and reduced Scotland’s star Gordon Smith “to the level of an ordinary player”, according to one match report.
He was quickly called up by the Scots and made his full debut, again against England, but this time in front of some 80 000 at Hampden Park in a 1-1 draw. After that, he was a regular choice, going on to play 18 more times for Scotland.
“When all the Scottish guys got together, having a laugh, their accents got broader to the point I didn’t actually know what they were saying. People would be making jokes and I’d be laughing in all the wrong places. But I never had a problem fitting in,” he recalled in an interview a decade ago.
There was never any doubt about his selection for the World Cup in Sweden, which famously became the staging ground for Pelé’s career.
Scotland never took on eventual winners Brazil, but Hewie played in their opening match against Yugoslavia and then a decisive third group game against France. The Scots needed to win to have any chance of advancing. After going a goal down, they had an opportunity to get back into the match when they were awarded a penalty.
“I didn’t just boot it anywhere, I was very deliberate,” Hewie recalled. “I belted it towards a chosen spot, the lefthand side. I can still picture it hitting the post. It had some force to it, and it bounced straight back out, over my head. I’ll never forget it.” The Scots went on to lose 2-1 and were eliminated.
In later years, when Ferguson brought his Manchester United team to Charlton, he asked to meet Hewie and told him he had been a keen fan as a youngster.
When his playing days were done in the UK, Hewie came back to South Africa for a final foray and played for hometown club Arcadia Shepherds, in-
I can still picture it hitting the post. I’ll never forget it
cluding competing in the 1966 Castle Cup final, which they lost to Highlands Park.
The next year the club asked him to be manager, but he lasted only some 12 months in the job.
Hewie returned to the UK in 1990 and settled in Lincolnshire. He battled dementia for many years.
His wife, Ruth, died before he did and he is survived by a daughter, Alison, who was born while he was away at the World Cup, and a son, Adam. — Mark Gleeson
UNFLAPPABLE: Former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy relaxes in his Westminster office, in 2004