While many of today’s top players are happy to be in the limelight, it wasn’t true of many in days gone by.
A point to illustrate this concerns the legendary former Everton and England centre-forward ‘Dixie’ Dean.
A member of the great Everton side of the late 1920s, Dean scored a record 60 English League goals in season 1927-28, a record which stands to this day.
The wingers who provided the crosses for most of those goals were Harry Ritchie, from Scone, and Alec Troup (left), from Forfar.
Ritchie’s other clubs also included St Johnstone, while Troup’s included Forfar and Dundee.
When Troup died in 1951, Dean attended his funeral in Forfar but never told anybody he was coming.
In fact, no one in the huge funeral crowd recognised him.
Dean, born with the christian names William Ralph, made his way back to Forfar station after the service to catch a connection back to Liverpool.
As the train he was getting on pulled in from Aberdeen, some railway workers who had been working on the line at Brechin alighted.
As they were getting off the train, Dean got on.
A couple of the railway lads thought the man getting on looked familiar and then it dawned on them it was, indeed, the legendary Dixie Dean.
Had it not been for them being so eagle eyed, no one would’ve known the great Dixie had come all the way to Forfar to pay his respects to a great team-mate.
A younger member of our sports team asked why he was called ‘Dixie’.
The story I’ve always been told is that it was because of his dark skin and the fact that the popular music of the time was Dixieland Jazz.
Dean began his career at his hometown club Tranmere Rovers before moving on to Everton, the club he had supported as a child.
He was particularly known for scoring goals with his head.
Dean played the majority of his career at Goodison Park before injuries caught up with him and he moved on to new challenges at Notts County.
In addition to his league goalscoring exploits, he had a great average in appearances for England, scoring 18 goals in 16 matches.
A statue of Dean was unveiled outside Goodison Park in May 2001.
A year later, he became one of 22 players inducted into the inaugural English Football Hall of Fame.
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