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Goal.com's Top 50 English Players: Dixie Dean (12)
Goal.com continues to count the top 50 English players of all time today with arguably the greatest goalscoring legend of them all, Dixie Dean...
| Bet: | Returns: | Everton £31.00 | Draw £32.50 | Chelsea £22.50 |
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| Bet: | Returns: | Everton £33.00 | Draw £31.00 | Chelsea £23.00 |
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| Bet: | Returns: | Everton £32.00 | Draw £32.50 | Chelsea £23.00 |
|
| Bet: | Returns: | Everton £32.50 | Draw £33.00 | Chelsea £22.50 |
|
| Bet: | Returns: | Everton £33.50 | Draw £33.50 | Chelsea £23.00 |
|
Jun 6, 2009 4:18:37 PM
No.50 - John Terry
No.49 - Tony Currie
No.48 - Terry Butcher
No.47 - Gerry Hitchens
No.46 - Paul Ince
No.45 - George Camsell
No.44 - Wayne Rooney
No.43 - Jackie Milburn
No.42 - Roger Hunt
No.41 - Rio Ferdinand
No.40 - Wilf Mannion
No.39 - Frank Lampard
No.38 - John Barnes
No.37 - Nat Lofthouse
No.36 - Eddie Hapgood
No.35 - Chris Waddle
No.34 - David Platt
No.33 - Phil Neal
No.32 - Johnny Haynes
No.31 - Peter Beardsley
No.30 - Ray Clemence
No.29 - Ted Drake
No.28 - Michael Owen
No.27 - Raich Carter
No.26 - Colin Bell
No.25 – Frank Swift
No.24 - Paul Scholes
No.23 - Tony Adams
No.22 - Martin Peters
No.21 - Billy Wright
No.20 - Geoff Hurst
No.19 - Cliff Bastin No.16 - Bryan Robson
No.15 - Alan Shearer
No.14 - Paul Gascoigne
No. 13 - David Beckham
Roy of the Rovers had nothing on Bill 'Dixie' Dean. No comic-book hero could outdo the real-life exploits of English football's most prolific centre-forward. Consider, for example, how he climaxed the 1927-28 season. He needed nine goals from Everton's last three First Division games to beat the record of 59 goals scored by George Camsell in the Second Division just a year earlier. It seemed an impossible task; and with Everton closing in on the championship, even a distraction for Dean.
But Dixie got two against Aston Villa, then four at Burnley, despite having to leave the pitch injured and needing careful nursing to be fit for the final match of the season, at home to Herbert Chapman's emerging Arsenal. Huddersfield lost in midweek to guarantee Everton the title, and 60,000 crammed into Goodison to see the championship trophy presented to the Toffees – and whether 21-year-old Dixie could set a new record for most League goals in a single season.
With a trademark header and a penalty, he equalled Camsell's record. Then fact eclipsed fiction as, with eight minutes of the campaign remaining, he soared to complete his hat-trick with an emphatic header, breaking the record outright with his 60th league goal of the season.
It’s safe to say that sensational achievement will never be equalled, let alone surpassed. The same can be said for Dixie's whole career, which encompassed 383 goals for Everton (including 37 hat-tricks) in 433 competitive first team appearances, 18 goals for England in 16 matches, a career total (all competitions) of 431 goals in 492 games, and a record in League games only of 379 goals in 438 appearances. Only Arthur Rowley scored more League goals (434 in 619 appearances), but Rowley's strike rate (0.70 goals per game) was inferior to Dean's (0.87).
Dixie was quite simply the greatest ever Evertonian, a phenomenon in the truest sense of the word, whose exploits were little short of super-human.
Indeed, he shouldn’t even have been involved in that record-breaking 1927-28 season, according to the medical profession. For in the summer of 1926, Dean was involved in a motorcycle accident that left him with a fractured skull and busted jaw. Doctors feared he might not survive; they were convinced he wouldn't play again. Considering what he went on to achieve, it would have been a massive loss to Everton and to football.
Yet a mere 15 weeks later, he was back playing football in Everton blue. Metal plates had been inserted to help mend his skull, but they were subsequently removed, so the myth that there was something bionic about his prodigious heading power is without foundation, though it added to the mystique of the man.
So too did an earlier astonishing recovery. In an incident painful even to describe, which gives a whole new meaning to playing the ball, Dean, then at Tranmere Rovers, lost a testicle in the 1924-25 season. Rochdale's centre-half warned the 17-year-old that if he dared score again it would be his last ever goal. Dixie, unfazed, netted, and the defender delivered the ultimate crunching tackle to his groin. He was rushed to hospital where he underwent a particularly delicate operation. He was soon back in action, finishing that season with 27 goals in 27 games for Tranmere and earning a £3,000 move to Everton, the club he'd grown up supporting.
William Ralph Dean was born in January 1907 in Birkenhead on the banks of the Mersey. He played initially for local clubs Pensby and Tranmere, where he acquired the nickname he hated. Built like a light-heavyweight boxer, he loved football; and football fans - to whom he was always Dixie, not Bill - loved him. They flocked to Tranmere to watch him, and when he crossed the Mersey in March 1925 and began knocking in the goals for Everton, the whole nation became enthralled.
Dixie's athletic style embraced speed, dribbling skills, awesome shooting ability and the capacity to create goals for others as well as pile them up for himself. It was an exceptional package, though colleagues and opponents such as Tommy Lawton and Matt Busby reckoned Dixie's outstanding attribute was his heading, a skill he honed in training using a medicine ball. He could head a football harder than most players could kick it, and over a third of his goals were headed, despite the earlier fractured skull.
In his first full season with the Toffees (1925-26) his 38 league games yielded 32 goals, just six short of the then League record. The motorbike accident restricted him to 31 league and FA Cup games in 1926-27, but he still scored 24 goals, and in 1927 he made his England debut. In five games for his country that year, he scored 12 goals, including two hat-tricks ten days apart.
That set him up nicely for his annus mirabilis, when he scored in each of the first nine matches of the season - including all five in a 5-2 home win over Manchester United. By Christmas, he was half-way towards his target of 60, but with nine matches left and 17 goals still needed, many would have given it up as a lost cause. Not Dixie, who duly hit the magic sixty.
His exploits inevitably made him a marked man, and injuries began to take their toll; but it is testimony to his sportsmanship that despite severe provocation, he was never once cautioned or sent off. He was also a wanted man, and resisted the chance to join Chapman's Arsenal and a lucrative offer to play in America.
Having won the title the previous season, Everton struggled in 1928-29, finishing 18th, though Dean netted 26 in 29 games. The following campaign, the Toffees were actually relegated, despite Dixie's return of 23 goals in 25 games. But he and his team rampaged through the Second Division in 1930-31, winning the title by seven clear points and scoring 121 goals, with Dean contributing 39 in 37 starts. Back in the top-flight, the Toffees stormed to the championship at the first attempt, captain Dean hitting 45 goals in 39 starts. He scored another 24 the next season in the league, plus five in the FA Cup - including the second in a 3-0 win over Manchester City in the Wembley final as Dean lifted the trophy. As the final was the first match in which players wore numbered shirts (from 1 to 22), Dean fittingly became the first ever number 9.
Despite injuries he continued to score regularly over the next four seasons. Yet in 1937, he was dropped from the first team. By then Everton had signed teenager Tommy Lawton for £6,500, and Dean had told him, "I know you've come here to take my place. Anything I can do to help you I will." He was true to his word, but eventually left Goodison for an injury-ravaged spell with Notts County, then joined Sligo Rovers in Ireland before ending his professional career with Hurst in the Cheshire County League.
He joined the army during the war, and later ran the Dublin Packet pub in Chester before working as a porter for Littlewoods Football Pools in Liverpool until retirement. His belated testimonial match at Goodison in 1964 attracted more than 40,000 fans, 26 years after his last game for Everton. Dean had his right leg amputated in 1976 and on 1 March 1980, after watching the Merseyside derby, he suffered a heart attack at Goodison and died, aged 73. In 2001, a statue of Dean was erected outside the stadium with the inscription, "Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian".
HONOURS
First Division Championship winner - 1928, 1932
Second Division Championship winner - 1931
FA Cup winner - 1933
FA Charity Shield winner - 1928, 1932
'Sunday Pictorial Trophy' for 60 League Goals in 1927-28
Lewis's Medal to commemorate 200 league goals in 199 appearances
Football Writers' Association inscribed silver salver - 1976
Inaugural inductee in The National Football Museum Hall of Fame - 2002
BBC Radio Merseyside's 4th "Greatest Merseysider" - 2003
First name on Everton's "Millennium Giants" roster.
DID YOU KNOW...That before a match Dixie would have only a glass of sherry mixed with two raw eggs...that he is the only England player be given a standing ovation at Scotland's Hampden Park...that the great American baseball player, Babe Ruth, while in London, made a point of meeting Dixie to shake his hand...that Dean himself played baseball in the summer, and was also a decent cricketer and golfer...that Bill Shankly said, "Dixie was the greatest centre-forward there will ever be. His record of goalscoring is the most amazing thing under the sun"...and that Dixie himself said, "People ask me if that 60-goal record will ever be beaten. I think it will. But there's only one man who'll do it. That's the fella that walks on the water. I think he's about the only one."
Graham Lister, Goal.com
Goal.com invites the readers to leave their comments about Dixie Dean. The best one submitted within 24 hours - whether funny, informative or just purely passionate - will be added to the article. Keep them clean, fairly short and start writing now for your chance to be a part of the series!
No.49 - Tony Currie
No.48 - Terry Butcher
No.47 - Gerry Hitchens
No.46 - Paul Ince
No.45 - George Camsell
No.44 - Wayne Rooney
No.43 - Jackie Milburn
No.42 - Roger Hunt
No.41 - Rio Ferdinand
No.40 - Wilf Mannion
No.39 - Frank Lampard
No.38 - John Barnes
No.37 - Nat Lofthouse
No.36 - Eddie Hapgood
No.35 - Chris Waddle
No.34 - David Platt
No.33 - Phil Neal
No.32 - Johnny Haynes
No.31 - Peter Beardsley
No.30 - Ray Clemence
No.29 - Ted Drake
No.28 - Michael Owen
No.27 - Raich Carter
No.26 - Colin Bell
No.25 – Frank Swift
No.24 - Paul Scholes
No.23 - Tony Adams
No.22 - Martin Peters
No.21 - Billy Wright
No.20 - Geoff Hurst
No.19 - Cliff Bastin No.16 - Bryan Robson
No.15 - Alan Shearer
No.14 - Paul Gascoigne
No. 13 - David Beckham
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Bill 'Dixie' DEAN | |
|
Born |
22/01/1907 Birkenhead, Merseyside |
|
|
16 caps, 18 goals |
|
Clubs |
Tranmere Rovers, Everton, Notts County, Sligo Rovers, Hurst |
Roy of the Rovers had nothing on Bill 'Dixie' Dean. No comic-book hero could outdo the real-life exploits of English football's most prolific centre-forward. Consider, for example, how he climaxed the 1927-28 season. He needed nine goals from Everton's last three First Division games to beat the record of 59 goals scored by George Camsell in the Second Division just a year earlier. It seemed an impossible task; and with Everton closing in on the championship, even a distraction for Dean.
But Dixie got two against Aston Villa, then four at Burnley, despite having to leave the pitch injured and needing careful nursing to be fit for the final match of the season, at home to Herbert Chapman's emerging Arsenal. Huddersfield lost in midweek to guarantee Everton the title, and 60,000 crammed into Goodison to see the championship trophy presented to the Toffees – and whether 21-year-old Dixie could set a new record for most League goals in a single season.
|
BEST USER COMMENT  "I was born in Liverpool and to my dad's chagrin became an Evertonian. Dad was a fierce Liverpool supporter, but due to the amazing charisma of the man, his all time favorite footballer was Dixie Dean. My dad told me how Dixie had invited a bunch of street urchins to ride into town after a game. He rolled up his trousers and showed the boys his legs wrapped in bloody bandages. "Look what they did to me, lads", he said with a smile. Makes you want to part your hair down the middle. Like my dad."- Albert Perkins Eugene | Oregon, USA Add Your Comment Below! |
It’s safe to say that sensational achievement will never be equalled, let alone surpassed. The same can be said for Dixie's whole career, which encompassed 383 goals for Everton (including 37 hat-tricks) in 433 competitive first team appearances, 18 goals for England in 16 matches, a career total (all competitions) of 431 goals in 492 games, and a record in League games only of 379 goals in 438 appearances. Only Arthur Rowley scored more League goals (434 in 619 appearances), but Rowley's strike rate (0.70 goals per game) was inferior to Dean's (0.87).
Dixie was quite simply the greatest ever Evertonian, a phenomenon in the truest sense of the word, whose exploits were little short of super-human.
Indeed, he shouldn’t even have been involved in that record-breaking 1927-28 season, according to the medical profession. For in the summer of 1926, Dean was involved in a motorcycle accident that left him with a fractured skull and busted jaw. Doctors feared he might not survive; they were convinced he wouldn't play again. Considering what he went on to achieve, it would have been a massive loss to Everton and to football.
Yet a mere 15 weeks later, he was back playing football in Everton blue. Metal plates had been inserted to help mend his skull, but they were subsequently removed, so the myth that there was something bionic about his prodigious heading power is without foundation, though it added to the mystique of the man.
So too did an earlier astonishing recovery. In an incident painful even to describe, which gives a whole new meaning to playing the ball, Dean, then at Tranmere Rovers, lost a testicle in the 1924-25 season. Rochdale's centre-half warned the 17-year-old that if he dared score again it would be his last ever goal. Dixie, unfazed, netted, and the defender delivered the ultimate crunching tackle to his groin. He was rushed to hospital where he underwent a particularly delicate operation. He was soon back in action, finishing that season with 27 goals in 27 games for Tranmere and earning a £3,000 move to Everton, the club he'd grown up supporting.
|
CAREER HIGHLIGHT
 Champion with Everton |
Dixie's athletic style embraced speed, dribbling skills, awesome shooting ability and the capacity to create goals for others as well as pile them up for himself. It was an exceptional package, though colleagues and opponents such as Tommy Lawton and Matt Busby reckoned Dixie's outstanding attribute was his heading, a skill he honed in training using a medicine ball. He could head a football harder than most players could kick it, and over a third of his goals were headed, despite the earlier fractured skull.
In his first full season with the Toffees (1925-26) his 38 league games yielded 32 goals, just six short of the then League record. The motorbike accident restricted him to 31 league and FA Cup games in 1926-27, but he still scored 24 goals, and in 1927 he made his England debut. In five games for his country that year, he scored 12 goals, including two hat-tricks ten days apart.
That set him up nicely for his annus mirabilis, when he scored in each of the first nine matches of the season - including all five in a 5-2 home win over Manchester United. By Christmas, he was half-way towards his target of 60, but with nine matches left and 17 goals still needed, many would have given it up as a lost cause. Not Dixie, who duly hit the magic sixty.
His exploits inevitably made him a marked man, and injuries began to take their toll; but it is testimony to his sportsmanship that despite severe provocation, he was never once cautioned or sent off. He was also a wanted man, and resisted the chance to join Chapman's Arsenal and a lucrative offer to play in America.
Having won the title the previous season, Everton struggled in 1928-29, finishing 18th, though Dean netted 26 in 29 games. The following campaign, the Toffees were actually relegated, despite Dixie's return of 23 goals in 25 games. But he and his team rampaged through the Second Division in 1930-31, winning the title by seven clear points and scoring 121 goals, with Dean contributing 39 in 37 starts. Back in the top-flight, the Toffees stormed to the championship at the first attempt, captain Dean hitting 45 goals in 39 starts. He scored another 24 the next season in the league, plus five in the FA Cup - including the second in a 3-0 win over Manchester City in the Wembley final as Dean lifted the trophy. As the final was the first match in which players wore numbered shirts (from 1 to 22), Dean fittingly became the first ever number 9.
Despite injuries he continued to score regularly over the next four seasons. Yet in 1937, he was dropped from the first team. By then Everton had signed teenager Tommy Lawton for £6,500, and Dean had told him, "I know you've come here to take my place. Anything I can do to help you I will." He was true to his word, but eventually left Goodison for an injury-ravaged spell with Notts County, then joined Sligo Rovers in Ireland before ending his professional career with Hurst in the Cheshire County League.
He joined the army during the war, and later ran the Dublin Packet pub in Chester before working as a porter for Littlewoods Football Pools in Liverpool until retirement. His belated testimonial match at Goodison in 1964 attracted more than 40,000 fans, 26 years after his last game for Everton. Dean had his right leg amputated in 1976 and on 1 March 1980, after watching the Merseyside derby, he suffered a heart attack at Goodison and died, aged 73. In 2001, a statue of Dean was erected outside the stadium with the inscription, "Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian".
HONOURS
First Division Championship winner - 1928, 1932
Second Division Championship winner - 1931
FA Cup winner - 1933
FA Charity Shield winner - 1928, 1932
'Sunday Pictorial Trophy' for 60 League Goals in 1927-28
Lewis's Medal to commemorate 200 league goals in 199 appearances
Football Writers' Association inscribed silver salver - 1976
Inaugural inductee in The National Football Museum Hall of Fame - 2002
BBC Radio Merseyside's 4th "Greatest Merseysider" - 2003
First name on Everton's "Millennium Giants" roster.
DID YOU KNOW...That before a match Dixie would have only a glass of sherry mixed with two raw eggs...that he is the only England player be given a standing ovation at Scotland's Hampden Park...that the great American baseball player, Babe Ruth, while in London, made a point of meeting Dixie to shake his hand...that Dean himself played baseball in the summer, and was also a decent cricketer and golfer...that Bill Shankly said, "Dixie was the greatest centre-forward there will ever be. His record of goalscoring is the most amazing thing under the sun"...and that Dixie himself said, "People ask me if that 60-goal record will ever be beaten. I think it will. But there's only one man who'll do it. That's the fella that walks on the water. I think he's about the only one."
Graham Lister, Goal.com
Goal.com invites the readers to leave their comments about Dixie Dean. The best one submitted within 24 hours - whether funny, informative or just purely passionate - will be added to the article. Keep them clean, fairly short and start writing now for your chance to be a part of the series!
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