Researching John Sewell

A well-rounded young athlete, Sewell played fly-half at rugby so well that he was twice selected to play for England Schools’ Under 15 team. On leaving school, he first became a sprinter with Blackheath Harriers, and then signed as a “professional footballer” for Bexleyheath & Welling in 1954.

A key man at centre-half in the Kent League team at Bexleyheath, Sewell was transferred to Charlton Athletic on January 5, 1955. Almost immediately, he spent two years in national service, and finally made his league debut at right-half against Sheffield Wednesday in January 1957, a year in which the club struggled (and ultimately failed) to avoid relegation from the First Division. After not making the first team the following season, he was named again to the squad at Christmas, 1958 – this time at full-back, a position he played for the rest of his career.

Sewell made 204 first team appearances for Charlton, scoring 5 goals, before signing for London rivals Crystal Palace on October 25, 1963. Between 1963 and 1971, he made 258 appearances for Palace, scoring nine goals, mainly from the penalty spot. He became club captain in 1967-68, when Alan Stephenson left to join West Ham, and in 1969, led Palace to the First Division for the first time in the club’s history.

In 1970, his last season with Palace, he scored his best remembered goal in the closing seconds of a Division One match against league leaders Leeds United. The visitors were a goal up when the ball came to Sewell, thirty yards from goal, who chose to hit a speculative lob back into the penalty area. The Leeds goalkeeper, Gary Sprake, caught the ball at the goal line, and then inexplicably dropped it behind him into his own net.

In 1971, Sewell received a testimonial for his services to Palace, against Belgian club RFC Bruges. It was his last game in a Palace shirt. That same year, he joined an exodus of players leaving Selhurst Park to join their former coach George Petchey at Leyton Orient. After just one season, however, he left for America to play in the fledgling North American Soccer League for the St. Louis Stars (later the California Surf, based in Anaheim), where he stayed as player and coach for eight years. In 1975, he was named NASL Coach of the Year, for his success guiding a St. Louis squad comprised almost exclusively of home-grown American players, an oddity in the era of Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer, and other high-priced imports.

His soccer career at a close, Sewell stayed in California for almost thirty years, before retiring to Washington state in 2006. He died in Sequim, Washington on 19 November 2021.

John Sewell was born in 1867 in Elbert County, Georgia, and moved with his parents to Florida when he was 19 years old. Sewell, working for Henry Flagler, served as foreman and superintendent for the Florida East Coast Railway during the construction of the line from Jacksonville to Miami and later joined the hotel construction department. After helping to construct The Royal Poinciana Hotel and The Breakers Hotel at Palm Beach, Sewell moved to Miami in 1896 to work on the Royal Palm Hotel. While working on the hotel, Sewell stumbled upon the burial grounds of the Tequesta Native-Americans. Sewell gave away some of the skulls as souvenirs, and ordered African-American laborers to move the remaining bones and bury them in a hole. Sewell remained in the employ of the Florida East Coast Railway until 1899, when he left to concentrate his efforts on the mercantile establishment jointly owned with this brother. He was Mayor of the City of Miami from 1903 to 1907.

After serving in local politics, Sewell began the construction of his house in 1912. Built on the highest point in the city, the house was named Halissee Hall from the Seminole word meaning "New Moon."

Sewell wrote a self-published autobiography entitled John Sewell's Memoirs and History of Miami, Florida. It included an appendix describing his witnessing the attempted assassination of president-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. The book is valuable as a primary source of information on pioneer days in Miami.

He is buried in the Miami City Cemetery.