Club officials suspected transfer hoax after Everton icon kept 2,000 supporters waiting

Everton are heading to Seamus Coleman’s previous club Sligo Rovers where Dixie Dean played late in his career

Everton’s announcement that they are returning to Seamus Coleman’s previous team Sligo Rovers has brought back memories of the two clubs’ previous connection when the Blues’ most-celebrated player Dixie Dean was lured across the Irish Sea in a sensational transfer.

Sean Dyche’s squad will begin their preparations for Everton’s historic final season at Goodison Park with a trip to The Showgrounds to face League of Ireland Premier Division side Sligo on Friday July 19. Killybegs-born right-back Coleman, now captain of both club and country, left Sligo for the Blues in 2009 for his now famous bargain “Sixty grand” fee, immortalised in the Goodison Park terrace chant but some seven decades earlier it was the promise of a bumper pay day that persuaded Dean to make his switch to the Emerald Isle.

While over the past year Saudi Arabia has become the fashionable destination for players to go for a bumper payday, upping sticks to what was perceived as one of football’s backwaters seemed a curious choice for Dean over 80 years ago.

In Pitch Publishing’s In the Shadow of Benbulben, Paul Little delves into Dean’s tenure at Sligo Rovers, offering insight into this intriguing story. The name refers to the broad, level-topped rock that is a component of the Dartry Mountains and dominates the area surrounding the town on the untamed Atlantic coast of Connacht, where Everton’s all-time leading scorer played for a short while in 1939.

Supporters lovingly referring to them as the “Bit O’Red,” Sligo’s team was only established in 1928, the year of Dean’s incredible 60-goal season (no one has since come within 11 goals of this total in English top flight football). Despite this, the team was ambitious and eager to sign a well-known player from England to lead their attack.

Dean had by this stage moved from Everton to Notts County and was only just coming back from injury, had initially been contacted by Sligo, with a request to find them a centre-forward but when he was unable to identify any suitable targets, he came back to them offering his own services. Ireland had achieved full independence from the United Kingdom two years earlier and Dean recalled: “I asked one or two players and the first thing they said to me was: ‘Isn’t it a bit dangerous out there with all this IRA lark going on?’

Dean acknowledges that “tensions were high, and so it was hardly surprising that going to play in Ireland wasn’t an especially attractive proposition for some Englishmen at the time.” Little explains that Dean’s reference relates to “a sabotage and bombing campaign being waged by the Irish Republican Army across 1938 and into 1939 aimed at customs outposts along the partitioned island and that also stretched to targets in mainland Britain.” However, no one could ever accuse Dean of lacking courage, and the Goodison Park star was on his way after he said that Sligo had returned and “offered me terms I could not possibly refuse.”

Even though Dean acknowledged the financial benefits that enabled the bold move, the Sligo Champion, a local newspaper in the fervently Catholic Ireland, speculated about the possibility of divine intervention, saying that “the club’s committee members would have been forgiven for wondering if some greater power was at work given the enormity of what they had pulled off.” And it turns out, they might have been correct! It transpires that the club’s initial contact with Dean was allegedly started by the Right Reverend Monsignor Pat Collins, a clergyman from Sligo, who claimed to have known the player while he was a player for Everton and was employed by Liverpool.

Despite the outcome of the bargain, the Sligo public was enthralled with the idea of Dean’s visit, which was verified by a brief telegraph he sent that said, “Offer accepted.” I’ll be there on Friday. Little does, however, explain how the great centre forward kept the town’s mayor and the club’s committee, together with 2,000 eager supporters, waiting and perspiring when he was late.
As anticipated, the train arrives at the station slowly, heightening the tension and suspense as it passes. As the passengers get off, there’s also a surge of exhilaration. Necks twist, eyes strain. The greeting is prepared. However, Dixie Dean is not present.

“The early train from Dublin does not contain William Ralph Dixie Dean. And one can only image the astonishment and disappointment when the train stops and the platform opens and the biggest celebrity to visit Sligo in history doesn’t actually arrive.
Just picture the emotions the club executives were experiencing. hearts full of lips. Was it a ruse? Were they tricked? Did they think they would look stupid? And the folks, the followers?

Yes, of course it couldn’t occur. The best centre forward in football—what in the world would he be doing here? Had they all lost their minds?
But after that, I received a call from Dublin with an apology and an update. And a general sense of relief. Though he will be taking the later train, Dixie Dean has stated that he will be there. It will be him at 6.40 p.m.

Sincere regrets for any confusion caused. The former Everton player had seized the chance to see an old buddy while in Dublin—Dean was well-known for his devotion to friends—the former Bohemians coach

Even though Dean’s stint at Sligo was short—just four months—Little goes into great detail about it. The 32-year-old was on the verge of leaving Notts County before making the move, but his time in Ireland—where he scored 11 goals in as many games, including in the FAI Cup final against Shelbourne (where they would draw 1–1 before losing the replay 1-0)—seemed to rekindle his passion for the game. The following season, he began playing for Hurst FC (now Ashton United), in the Cheshire County League. Like Sligo, they were exempt from the Football’s League maximum wage restriction, which allowed them to pay him among the highest salaries in the nation. However, just one week after he made his debut, Britain

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