Dixie Dean's 60 league goals: Bookies stunned by Dixie’s prolific run
May 3 2008
Dixie's Sixty: Part Four - From 49-60
by David Prentice, Liverpool Echo
TODAY we complete our five-part series to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Dixie Dean’s remarkable feat of scoring 60 goals in one season, a record which is likely to stand for all time.
THE bookies rarely get it wrong. But Dixie Dean cost them dear throughout his record-breaking 60-goal season.
Local bookie and Liverpool fan, Billy Cave, was the Fred Done of his day. And ahead of the 1927-28 campaign he hatched a bet he thought might earn him a little publicity.
Instead it cost him.
Cave, for a £2 stake, offered Dean odds of evens for every match he could score one goal in that season, 5-2 for two goal performances and 10-1 for every hat-trick.
Cave’s friend and fellow bookie Freddie Tarbuck, father of comedian Jimmy, decided to side with Dixie, accepted Cave’s odds and backed the Blues’ centre-forward.
They were handsomely rewarded for their faith.
But still the bookies didn’t learn.
Everton suffered a midwinter slump which installed Huddersfield as firm favourites for the title.
After a 2-1 win at Sheffield Wednesday on New Year’s Eve, the Blues won just one of their next 11 matches.
Indeed a 4-1 hammering at Huddersfield on February 4, followed by a 5-2 defeat at home to Spurs, suggested Everton’s early season form had been a flash in the pan.
Everton were quoted at 1,000-1 to win the title, while their club programme reported: “With Dean requiring a further nine goals to reach the magical total bookmakers listed him at 10,000-1 to hit the mark.”
You couldn’t blame the bookies. Dean had just three games in which to grab those nine goals.
The outcome, of course, is history. But there is no record there was any Blue brave enough to accept those attractive odds . . . not even the great man himself!
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