Joy of Six - Football Purple Patches

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tsubaki

Player Valuation: £90m
Apologies if this has been posted already, but if not here it is.

6) Dixie Dean, 1923-1940
The name Dixie Dean is as synonymous with Everton as it is with goalscoring, as it is with the definitive purple patch; one that lasted an entire career, its status established by relative, not subjective comparison. After scoring 27 times in 30 appearances for Tranmere, Everton showed an interest in buying him and Dean, who had been taken to Everton as a child, was so keen that he ran the two-and-a-half miles to meet the club secretary, Thomas H McIntosh. So, when Tranmere diddled him over his share of the transfer fee, giving him 1% instead of 10 of the £3,000 fee, he simply gave it to his parents, who donated it to the local hospital.

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And, ensconced at Everton, he set about things. His first season yielded 32 goals, but then, that summer, he fractured skull and jaw in a motorcycle accident in Holywell. There was doubt as to whether he’d live – but, relates Everton’s Jubilee History: “His survival astonished them. When recovery was assured the medical pronouncement was ‘This man will never be able to play football again.’”

But play again he did, even scoring with a trademark header in his next game. “In this respect he excels every other famous centre-forward,” wrote a contemporary report. “Ordinary players butt the ball with the crown of their heads, Dean artistically glides it downwards with the side of his.”

It was the next season for which he became most famous, his 60 goals – in 39 appearances – still a record for a major European league, comprising more than half of Everton’s total and inspiring them to the title. He failed to score only eight times and managed at least one in each of the first nine games, season’s highlights also including all five against Manchester United, four at Burnley and five hat-tricks, one of those at Anfield – oh, and 15 braces.

Even so, with nine games to go he was still 17 shy of the record number of goals scored in a season, achieved a year earlier by Middlesbrough’s George Camsell. And after his four at Turf Moor on the penultimate Saturday, he was withdrawn injured. Everton worked hard to have him ready for Charles Buchan’s Arsenal, Camsell’s record equalled via header and penalty – but with five minutes to go, surpassing it seemed unlikely.

“Five minutes from time we made up our minds that Dixie wasn’t going to get the other goal we longed to see,” wrote Thomas Keates. “Good heavens! While the thought was formulating, [Alex] Troup (the electric tripper) sent a nice dropping shot in front of goal, the ball hung in the air, Dixie’s magical head went for it and tipped it into the net. You talk about explosions, and loud applause; we have heard many explosions, and much applause in our long pilgrimage, but, believe us, we have never heard such a prolonged roar of thundering, congratulatory applause before as to that which ascended to heaven when Dixie broke the record.” His grand total for the season, including cup-ties and internationals, was 84.

Unsurprisingly, his was a face in demand; “young footballers will have no cause to complain that smoking interferes with their general fitness … if they smoke Wix”, went as snappy a tag as can ever have existed. This association was met by an absence of Wilsherian outcry – but then he wasn’t wearing a baseball hat, in a swimming pool, at the time.

And the goals continued. In 1930-31, when with Everton in Division 2, he scored more times than he played, returning 39 in 37, and again the following season, 45 in 38, as Everton again won the league. Then, in 1933, he scored in every round of the FA Cup but the semi-final, leading his team to Wembley victory over Manchester City.

By the time he left Goodison he’d scored 383 times in 433 games. Then, at Notts County, Sligo Rovers and Hurst, came three in nine, 10 in seven and one in two, which, added to 18 in 16 for England, made for a career total of 424 in 482 games; in English football, only Arthur Rowley was more prolific, and in 619 games, the majority of those outside the top division.

“He belongs in the company of the supremely great”, enthused Bill Shankly, “like Beethoven, Shakespeare and Rembrandt. His record of goalscoring is the most amazing thing under the sun.”

On retirement Dean bought the obligatory pub in which he nurtured healthy disdain for the pretenders who came after him. “They play in carpet slippers with a beach ball,” he said. And was it true that his record hadn’t been equalled because marking became tighter? “No, I don’t think they’re good enough. It’s not about the marking, I’ve had as many as two and three every time I’ve gone for the ball. So I don’t think anybody was marked more so, especially on my body, limbs, and one and the other.” Which is to say there has never been a patch remotely the equal of Dixie’s, nor will there ever be.

More here.
 

can someone explain to me why he never played more for england, i've always wondered. i know it was at a time where they didn't play too frequently, but still, there would have been no better around. memory tells me it may have been something to do with the manager at the time.

i love it when you see stats from olden days in sport, you always wonder how they'd fare in a more modern time. obviously his record will never ever be broken, people think it's obscene when players score half what he did in a season.

you just always wonder whether they were so successful because they were ahead of everyone else of that generation or whether they'd be utterly phenomenal regardless of the generation.
 
I know. So it's not a purple patch.

It's just being that bloody good.

If you're doing a joy of six purple patches then it should be mediocre players going on one great run not a great player being consistently great.

I hear Jelavic is fuming that Dixie got the nod.
 
can someone explain to me why he never played more for england, i've always wondered. i know it was at a time where they didn't play too frequently, but still, there would have been no better around. memory tells me it may have been something to do with the manager at the time.

To answer this honestly though. England played 25 games during dean's years as an international, he played in 16 of them. The other 9 he wasn't picked by the selection committee made up of clubs chairmen that picked the england team in those days.

This was partly politics, committee members wanted to see the strikers from their own clubs get a look in and Dixie to be rested and such like.
 

To answer this honestly though. England played 25 games during dean's years as an international, he played in 16 of them. The other 9 he wasn't picked by the selection committee made up of clubs chairmen that picked the england team in those days.

This was partly politics, committee members wanted to see the strikers from their own clubs get a look in and Dixie to be rested and such like.

that's what i was thinking of when i meant manager, knew i wasn't going insane. cheers for the info
 
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