[1] McEwan started his career with East Craigie in the Scottish Junior Football Association set up in his birth town of Dundee.
At Arbroath he hit what the club's history suggests is the fastest ever goal at their Gayfield stadium, scoring after 10 seconds against Dumbarton on 6 January 1951.
McEwan helped Villa win the Football League Division Two championship in his first season for promotion to England's top flight.
Les Smith's achilles injury ultimately led to his retirement in 1960 opening a place on the team sheet at right wing.
Given his chance, McEwan was an important player in attack at Villa teaming up well with Vic Crowe and Bobby Thomson.
In an all-West midlands affair played at The Hawthorns in West Bromwich, McEwan's club again lost to the eventual winners, this time Wolverhampton Wanderers.
[8][12][9][13] On 27 September 1960 he played against ex-club Raith in a game to formally mark the switch on of the Starks Park floodlights.
His favourite Villa game was his first start of the season on 19 March 1966, 5–5 draw away at Tottenham Hotspur, three days before his 37th birthday.
He had been in good health at the care home until around 18 months before his death when he developed heart trouble and late onset dementia.
He was described in the profile by Aston Villa's club historian as, "a craggy-and-hungry-looking outside-right, a player who hugged the touchline, cutting in when the ball was being moved along the opposite flank," and "With Raith he blossomed into a goalscoring right-winger-cum-centre-forward."