Dixie's Role On and Off The Pitch
Just 95 days to go until FreeStand Films present the premiere screening of “DIXIE: The Goal King” at New Brighton Floral Pavilion. Ticket details below.
Our documentary script writer John Keith who is also Dixie Dean's biographer shares more stories with you.
Dixie Dean was more than a brilliant footballer and goalscorer extraordinary. He also had a captain’s steel and sense of responsibility with a moral as well as physical strength. This was perfectly illustrated during Everton’s tour of Germany in the summer of 1932 just as Adolf Hitler’s national socialists became the country’s largest party by winning 37 per cent of votes at a general election. Into this maelstrom of the rapidly building Third Reich stepped Dixie and his Everton team for a 4-game tour, beginning in Dresden.
“Many of the top Nazis were there including Herman Goering,” Dixie recalled.
“All the talk was about the Nazi salute before the game …..but there was no way our lads were going to stick our hands up ! So we kept our hands by our sides. The crowd didn’t like that and started booing. But it made no difference to me…..they could boo all they liked. Then, when it came to the kick off, the German captain brought over a ball. It was a size 4. But we played with a size 5. He put this ball down on the spot and I said to myself : ‘We’re not playing with that bloody thing, it’s like a kid’s garden ball.’ So I slid it to one side and put our ball down. He came up, spouting something in German, and knocked my ball away. This went on a couple of times. So I threw our ball to our lads, picked up his ball and I said to him: ‘We play with this. So come with me.’ I took him to the touchline, bounced his ball then kicked it right over the bloody stand ! Now we play with this …..and we did.”
On the same tour Dixie had a painful experience going to the rescue of his team mate Jimmy Dunn a brilliant inside forward – a midfielder in today’s football parlance- who was one of Scotland’s ‘Wembley Wizards’, so named for hammering England 5-1 in 1928.
On the last night of the tour Dixie was admiring the splendour of Cologne Cathedral when he overheard one youngster say to another ‘zwei fussball spieler, polizei.’
“I guessed that one of our lads was in trouble so the two lads showed me where the police station was and I found little Jimmy there, “ Dixie recalled. “He’d been robbed in a bar, chased after the thief but had been pulled in for disturbing the peace.
“I told Jimmy to make a run for it, which he did. But the police waded into me with those leather sausages and left my head like an egg box. I also had two broken fingers.”
Dixie was then taken to court and fined the equivalent of £13 10 shillings which he refused to pay. “Our chairman Will Cuff and the directors found out what had happened and sorted everything out,” said Dixie, who had discovered the hard way that captaincy was much more than tossing a coin and choosing ends .
Join us for the documentary screening - Tickets at £32 with concessions £27
New Brighton Floral Pavilion – Friday January 22, 2027
Box office on 0151 666 0000 or on line at floralpavilion.com.
VIEW Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeUJMEwJcUY&t=19s
BOOK Tickets: https://www.floralpavilion.com/event/dixie-the-goal-king-debut-screening-with-special-guest-graeme-sharp/
#DixieTheGoalKing #DixieDean #EvertonFC #EFC #FootballHistory #MerseysideFootball #FreeStandFilms #FloralPavilion
See you there x
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