Dixie Dean

Tranmere Rovers

He played football for Laird Street School, Moreton Bible Class, Heswall and Pensby United. He then joined the professional ranks with his local club, Tranmere Rovers in November 1923. He was sixteen at the time. Whilst at Tranmere, he was on the receiving end of a tough challenge which resulted in him losing a testicle in a reserve game against Altrincham. Immediately following the challenge, a teammate rubbed the area to ease the pain. Dean shouted, "Don't rub 'em, count 'em!" In his sixteen months at Tranmere, spanning the 1923–24 and 1924–25 seasons, he scored 27 goals in 30 league appearances. All 27 were in the second of those two seasons, in which he averaged exactly a goal per game. His exploits attracted the interest of many clubs across England, including Arsenal and Newcastle United. Upon leaving Tranmere Rovers, manager Bert Cooke reneged on an agreement to pay ten percent of the transfer fee to Dean. Dean was paid one percent of the fee, which he gave to his parents (who donated it to Birkenhead General Hospital).

Everton

His father had taken him to a league game at Goodison Park when he was eight years old. It was a dream come true for Dean, when Everton secretary Thomas H. McIntosh arranged to meet him at the Woodside Hotel in 1925. Dean was so excited that he ran the 2.5 miles (4.0 km) distance from his home in north Birkenhead to the riverside to meet him. He signed for Everton in March 1925, having just turned eighteen. He…

Dean made his debut for the England national football team against British rivals Wales at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham in February 1927, less than a month after his 20th birthday. His final game for England came in a 1–0 victory over Ireland in October 1932 at Blackpool's Bloomfield Road, when Dean was 25 years old. Dean was involved in the 1927 and 1929 editions of the British Home Championship. During the 1927 edition, Dean scored four goals in his two games for England and scored twice against Scotland at Hampden Park. Despite the loss, the Scots won the competition overall and applauded Dean (who finished the tournament as top scorer). In the 1929 edition, he scored in his only outing against Ireland at Goodison Park. The only international competitions outside the British Home Championship during Dean's international career were the 1928 and 1936 Olympic Games and the inaugural FIFA World Cup, which took place in 1930; however, neither Great Britain nor England participated. Dean represented England sixteen times, scoring eighteen goals in nine games (including hat-tricks against Belgium and Luxembourg).

Dean became a Freemason in 1931 while playing for Everton and England. He was initiated in Randle Holme Lodge, No. 3261, in Birkenhead on 18 February 1931. After retiring, he went on to run the Dublin Packet pub in Chester (Everton and the Dublin Packet commemorate this with memorabilia) and work at Littlewoods football pools as a porter at their Walton Hall Avenue offices, where he was remembered by fellow workers as a quiet, unassuming man. In January 1972, Dean was admitted to St Catherine's hospital in Birkenhead suffering from the effects of influenza and was released a month later. In November 1976, he had his right leg amputated due to a blood clot; his health was declining, and he became increasingly housebound. Dean died on 1 March 1980 at age 73, after suffering a heart attack at Everton's home ground Goodison Park, whilst watching a match against their closest rivals, Liverpool. It was the first time that he had visited Goodison Park in several years, due to ill health. "He belongs to the company of the supremely great, like Beethoven, Shakespeare and Rembrandt", said Bill Shankly. His funeral took place at St James' Church on Laird Street (the street where he was born) in Birkenhead. He was survived by his four children: William, Geoffrey, Ralph and Barbara; he outlived his wife Ethel, who died of a heart attack in 1974 after 43 years of marriage.

Dean was an internationally known figure. Military records show that during the Second World War, an Italian prisoner of war was captured by British troops in the Western Desert and told his captors "fuck your Winston Churchill and fuck your Dixie Dean". One of the soldiers present was Liverpool-born Patrick Connelly, who later went into show business using the pseudonym "Bill Dean". Everton arranged a testimonial for Dean on 7 April 1964. Over 34,000 people saw teams from Scotland and England, composed of players from Everton and Liverpool, compete; The "Scots", with one Englishman and one Welshman, won 3–1. The match raised £7,000 for Dean.

Dean's 1933 FA Cup winner's medal sold for £18,213 at auction in March 2001. In May 2001 local sculptor Tom Murphy created a statue of Dean, which was erected outside the Park End of Goodison Park at a cost of £75,000 with the inscription "Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian". In 2002, Dean was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame. There is an annual Dixie Dean award, which is given to the Merseyside player of the year; it has been won by players from his former clubs (Tranmere and Everton) and Liverpool. When asked if he thought his record of scoring 60 goals in a season would be broken, Dean said: "I think it will. But there's only one man who'll do it. That's the fellow that walks on the water. I think he's about the only one." In total, Dean scored 383 goals for Everton in 433 appearances — an exceptional…