Between 1925 and 1933, one man was the centre of everything at Everton FC – the legendary Dixie Dean. Born in Birkenhead, Dean joined Everton, the club he grew up supporting, from Tranmere Rovers in March 1925 at the age of 18. He came from a humble background – working as an apprentice fitter where he would practice by kicking trespassing rats against a wall. Dixie Dean made an immediate impact at Everton, banging in 32 goals in his first season. Dean is most famous for his exploits during the 1927-28 season, in which he scored an incredible 60 goals. This record is unlikely to ever be beaten, and resulted in Everton becoming First Division champions that season. Just two seasons later, bizarrely, the club was relegated to the Second Division but retained Deans services. Thanks in no small part to his efforts, the Toffees immediately won the Second Division in 1931 and then proceeded to win the First Division again in 1932. Becoming champions of the top flight straight after promotion to it remains a feat that is essentially unheard of, until Leicester City pulled this off in 2016.

 

If that wasn’t enough, Everton then defeated Manchester City in the 1933 FA Cup final. Such a sequence of achievements remains unmatched to this day. Interestingly, this final was also the very first one in which players wore numbers for identification, Everton allocated numbers 1-11 and City given numbers 12-22. Everton controlled the game throughout, scoring when City’s keeper dropped the ball under pressure from Dean to make it 1-0 at the half, Jimmy Stein scoring the goal.  Following a cross from Britton, Dean charged to the goal, collided with the goalkeeper and he, the keeper and the ball ended up in the net making it 2-0. A headed goal from Dunn ten minutes from time sealed the deal, and it was Everton who would collect the cup from the Duke of York. Everton returned home as heroes and paraded the streets in the same horse-drawn carriage they used to celebrate their previous FA Cup win in 1906. A few years later, the harsh physical demands of the game took their toll on Dixie Dean, and he was dropped from the first team and moved on to Notts County.

 

In total, Dean scored 383 goals in 433 Everton appearances, an exceptional record which includes 37 hat-tricks. Dean was never booked or sent off in his entire career, and in 2001 a statue of him was erected outside the park end of Goodison Park with the inscription “Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian.”  But Everton weren’t only about Dixie Dean – they had other wonderful players in their ranks at the time, too. Players like the “Prince of Full Backs”, Warney Cresswell who was renowned for his tackling and positioning skills, Tommy Johnson, known for his powerful left-footed shot and future Manchester City manager Jock Thomson, who followed the tradition of many of his colleagues and ran a pub after retiring from football.

Achievements: English First Division – Champions x2
                         English Second Division – Champions x1
                         FA Cup – Winners x1
                         Liverpool Senior Cup – Winners x3

Star player: Wiliam Dean DoB 22 January 1907, Birkenhead, England, nickname: Dixie

The terms “icon” and “legend” get thrown around quite a lot, but in respect to Dixie Dean, those nouns are accurate. Born as William Dean, he aquired the nickname Dixie as a youngster and grew up supporting Everton thanks to his father, who took him to a game in Evertons winning 1914/15 season. He signed for them at 18, for £3,000. This was his dream come true, and he was so excited he ran the entire way to the Woodside Hotel from his house in Birkenhead to meet the coach. Dean was involved in many commercial endorsements including, famously, Wix Cigarettes. After football, he worked at Littlewoods Football Pools where he was remembered as a quiet, unussuming man. In 1974, Dean had his right leg amputated due to a blood clot, and he succumed to a heart attack at Goodison Park while watching his beloved club play their greatest rivals, Liverpool in 1980. He was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame in 2002.