William Ralph “Dixie” Dean

2019 will see the opening of the Dixie Dean Hotel in Liverpool, a fitting tribute to the man who to this day towers above the city. His 60 goals in the 1927-28 season for Everton F.C. remain the most goals scored in a single season in the top flight of English football, and even at that time, before the dawn of social media, he was an internationally renowned figure: “F**k your Winston Churchill and f**k your Dixie Dean”, military records show an Italian prisoner of war saying to his British captors!

With the opening of the hotel, it is perhaps timely for me to share some perhaps lesser-known anecdotes about the great man, anecdotes taken from my late grandmother’s remarkable little book, Liverpool’s Sporting Pages. This is mainly a biography of her father, Louis Antonio Page, an England international footballer and baseballer in the 1920s, but also of his three brothers, Jack, Tom, and Willie, all professional footballers and international baseballers in their own right. Louis perhaps deserves special mention though. As a footballer, he remains Burnley F.C.’s fifth highest goalscorer with 111 goals, despite the fact that he was largely what we would now know as a winger, not a centre forward, and indeed the first time he played as centre forward for the Lancashire club, in a topflight game away to Birmingham City F.C. in 1926, he scored a double hat trick in a 7-1 victory, scoring three in each half, which earned him a place in the Guinness Book of Soccer Facts and Feats! He would go on to play for Manchester United and later become a footballer manager, but he was also an all-round sportsman, as I mentioned representing his country at both football and baseball, being invited to run in the professional Powderhall Sprint, and was an extremely talented boxer too who allegedly could have made that sport his career rather than football!

Louis was also Dixie’s best friend, and the two of them made their England debuts together on Saturday 12 February 1927, away to Wales, a game in which Dixie scored twice in a 3-3 draw. Louis would play seven times for his country, scoring once against Belgium, and in all seven games he was playing alongside Dixie in the forward line. Dixie himself would play 16 times for England, scoring 18 goals! My first anecdote comes from their second game for their country, away to Scotland on Wednesday 27 April in the same year. Before the game, so the story goes, Louis and Dixie went for a stroll. Dixie bought himself an orange and, after eating half of it, stuffed the empty skin into his sock and over the ankle, making a huge ‘swelling’. It should be noted that in those days even England internationals had to provide their own shorts and socks for games as well as take care of their own travel arrangements to and from matches. Anyway, when they arrived back at Hampden Park, where the match was being played, there was absolute panic until the trainer removed the sock and realised that Dixie’s ankle wasn’t really ‘sprained’! Indeed, Julie Dean, Dixie’s granddaughter, assures me that this was typically mischievous of her grandfather! And perhaps they were right to have panicked, for Dixie would go on to score both of the goals in a 2-1 victory! Louis and Dixie would never play club football together, but they were incidentally both involved in an exhibition match the following year on April 10 at Burnden Park, Bolton. This was the Lancashire Football Association Jubilee Match between a Lancashire Select XI and an F. A. Select XI, and the two of them were in the Lancashire forward line!

My second anecdote comes from the world of baseball. As I mentioned above, all four Page brothers were England internationals, and Louis was responsible for introducing Dixie to this sport. On June 17 1929 a charity match was arranged between the English Baseball League and a team made up of footballers, including Louis and Dixie and also Tom and Willie. The match was played on the Police Athletic Ground in Liverpool in aid of St John Ambulance. The Baseball League, perhaps unsurprisingly, won, but the local newspaper did make mention of the performances of Louis and Tom, as well of Dixie being caught at long stop!There is also of course the story, told elsewhere, of the time Dixie met the American baseball legend Babe Ruth, after both had broke records in the same year, with the one scoring 60 league goals in the space of a single season and the other hit 60 homeruns, beating his own record in so doing!

Anyway, this was just one of many such matches played at venues up and down the country for charity, and indeed the charity of Louis and Dixie extended beyond baseball. Back to football now, and two years earlier, disaster had struck Fleetwood when a storm flooded the town to a depth of ten feet and took the lives of five people in October of 1927. The following month the Fleetwood Disaster Charity Football Match took place, with Louis playing outside left to Dixie, who scored four goals! Their generosity wasn’t reserved to charity either. In 1929, Louis, Dixie, and Donald Mackinlay, the former captain of Liverpool F.C., organised a boy’s six-a-side tournament for the August bank holiday, to be held at the St Edward’s Boys’ Orphanage in Broad Green, Liverpool. Dixie’s team came out winners, and so bought all his boys a medal and paid for their expenses!Living in a time when footballers are paid incredible sums, it is perhaps salutary to reflect on yesteryear, when England internationals had to provide their own shorts and socks for games as well as take care of their own travel arrangements to and from matches. Indeed, when Babe Ruth met Dixie, he was astonished to learn how little he was paid, and indeed later on, after their playing careers had come to an end and Louis was taking up his first managerial position at Chester F.C. – beating Everton’s legendary T.G. Jones to the post incidentally – Dixie was the licensee at the Dublin Packet Hotel in the same city! And yet this didn’t prevent the likes of Louis and Dixie giving something back to the people, beyond their performances on a Saturday afternoon. At this time football really was the people’s game. In recent years Everton F.C. has been christened the People’s Club, and quite rightly so, for their official charity, Everton in the Community (EitC), led by Dr Denise Barrett-Baxendale (MBE), has become a world leader in community schemes, winning over 80 accolades, nationally and internationally, including Best Community Scheme in Europe. In this respect Everton is living up to its motto, nil satis nisi optimum, but also to their history, with its standout player Dixie Dean not only to be remembered for his goalscoring feats but perhaps also for being a forerunner of its future charitable and community successes. With the opening of the Dixie Dean Hotel, both a football player and a human being ought to be celebrated, for Dixie’s legacy perhaps goes far beyond scoring 60 league goals in a season.