Around two months ago, I was given the following tale by a reader.
Due to the volume of other stories, this is the earliest I could have featured it in BwB.
Sadly, the footballer in question, Jimmy McEwan, passed away in late November.
With the family’s blessing, what follows is the original story in its entirety…
An ex-local footballer is thought to be the oldest-surviving former player of an English giant.
Dundee-born Jimmy McEwan started his senior career with Arbroath, then went on to play over 200 times for Raith Rovers.
He is the brother-in-law of Dundee reader Fergus Baird.
Fergus relayed the story: “Until my sister Mabel died two years ago, both Jimmy and her lived in Birmingham for many years.
“When my sister died, Jimmy went downhill very quickly.
“He basically didn’t want to be here and became a concern for his family.
“However, on that front, I recently went to Birmingham to see him in his nursing home.
“A reporter from the Birmingham Post got in touch with Jimmy’s son Eric, who also lives in Birmingham, wondering if he could arrange a meeting with Jimmy as they had been doing some research into past Aston Villa players.
“We could not believe it when we were told Jimmy was the oldest- surviving Aston Villa player at 88-years-old.”
Fergus continued: “Eric arranged the meeting and the report in the paper was quite amazing.
“Jimmy was able to go all the way back to Baffin Street in Dundee, where he was brought up.
“He told how his dad was a docker who went to the pub every night. His mum always made sure he was in bed before his dad came home because, seemingly, he was always drunk.
“He attended Glebelands Primary School, then on to Stobswell Boys Secondary School.
“After playing for the school team, he signed for East Craigie juniors. Shortly after that, he signed for Arbroath.
“He then mentioned he met ‘this bonnie lassie called Mabel’ (my sister) before then signing for Raith Rovers.
“He thought the fee was a record for Arbroath, but we are not sure about this. Bert Herdman, the then-Villa manager, approached Raith and signed Jimmy for Villa for an enormous fee of £8,000.”
Fergus concluded: “Another wee tale was that my sister, on finding out that Aston Villa were from Birmingham, was not at all keen to leave her native city.
“Jimmy had another word with the Villa manager, and it was soon all sorted.
“That was because Villa agreed to pay all their removal expenses — and that clinched the deal!”
Jimmy played over 140 games for Villa and finished his career at Walsall. He also became a trainer to the Fellows Park side and had a spell coaching in South Africa.
If you have any stories to share or a query to put to John email: jbrown@eveningtelegraph.co.uk.
This article originally appeared on the Evening Telegraph website. For more information, read about our new combined website.