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Supported by Everton FC |
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Dixie Dean
| Category: | Male Player |
| Year Inducted: | 2002 |
Profile by Robert Galvin, the author of The Football Hall of Fame, the official book of the National Football Museum Hall of Fame:
William Ralph Dean – the great and incomparable ‘Dixie' Dean – holds a secure place in the history of football on the strength of his extraordinary scoring feats during one dramatic season.
In just 39 games in 1927-28, Dean scored a record-breaking 60 goals for Everton in the First Division – reaching the landmark with a hat-trick on the final day of the season. At the age of 21, he had achieved a degree of recognition and acclaim previously beyond the reach of any footballer. It is inconceivable that his record will ever be broken.
Even members of Royalty were said to know of ‘Dixie', a player renowned for his heading ability. His waxwork likeness was put on display at Madame Tussauds, and the great American baseball player Babe Ruth went out of his way to meet him on a visit to England.
Between 1923 and 1939, Dean scored 473 goals in 502 League, FA Cup, representative and international matches. Twice, in 1927-28 and 1931-32, he was leading scorer in the First Division; on both occasions, Everton were champions.
Fittingly, albeit by chance, he was the first player to wear the number nine shirt at Wembley. When the Football Association trialled numbered shirts at the FA Cup Final in 1933, Everton were allocated numbers one to 11. Dean, typically, scored in the 3-0 win over Manchester City, who wore 12 to 22.
Wing-half Matt Busby, who played against him that day, said of Dean's unrivalled ability in the air: ‘When Dixie went up for the ball, he was almost unstoppable. Defenders were absolutely terrified of him.'
At international level, Dean scored 18 goals in 16 appearances for England. He would be an automatic choice for only two years, but even that represented an achievement given the fickleness and haphazard ways of selectors.
In his penultimate international Dean scored once in a 7-1 thrashing of Spain. He ended that season, 1931-32, as leading goalscorer in the First Division. It made no difference to the ‘hopelessly amateur' selectors, as an official FA history describes them.
In his prime, Dean's value was almost incalculable. Arsenal offered a blank cheque, but Everton still said no. Dixie had no intention of leaving the club he had supported as a boy, a commitment confirmed when he turned down a contract to play in the United States that would have tripled his wages.
As a teenager playing for his first club, Tranmere Rovers, Dean was a transfer target for a host of clubs, including Newcastle United, Arsenal and Huddersfield Town. Dean waited for Everton to make their move – and signed on the spot when Rovers accepted a sum of £3,000 – then a record fee for a 17-year-old. ‘I'd have played for Everton for nothing,' he once said.
Thirteen years later, Dean, his body now ravaged by injury, was sold to Notts County. Retirement soon followed.
Dean died, aged 73, in March 1980, after watching his beloved Everton play Liverpool at Goodison Park. On hearing the news, Joe Mercer, a former team-mate, asked: ‘Where else?' A statue was erected at the ground as a permanent memorial in 2001.
‘Dixie was the greatest centre-forward there will ever be,' Bill Shankly said at a celebratory dinner on the day of his friend's death. ‘He belongs to the company of the supremely great, like Beethoven, Shakespeare and Rembrandt.'
2007 sees the celebration of the centenary of Dixie Dean's birth.