 WILLIAM Ralph Dean was the only boy in a family of six sisters. Perhaps that’s what drove him out into the streets of Birkenhead to kick a football every waking hour! Born on January 22, 1907, at 313 Laird Street, Birkenhead, he was obsessed with football and spent his childhood honing the skills which would eventually turn him into a sporting legend. “When I was 12 or 13 I used to practice heading by tossing the ball onto a low chapel roof and heading it as it dropped,” he once recalled. “Once the ball was on the roof it was out of my sight and I had only a split second to move once it came into my vision. Then I used to try to head the ball in the opposite direction to what I was running. I got so good I could virtually hit any square of the net later on!” As a small boy, Dean played football wherever he could. And there were always plenty of teams willing to showcase his talents . . . Laird Street School team, Birkenhead Boys XI, Parkside, Birkenhead Melville and occasionally Upton Hamlet and Wirral Railways. He even turned down an approach from then League club New Brighton as a 16-year-old because he didn’t feel ready for League football. But while playing for Pensby Institute in the Wirral Combination, Tranmere Rovers came calling – and this time he accepted. His power had already attracted attention. While playing for Pensby against British Leather he knocked out the goalkeeper for several minutes with a fierce drive. And after his debut for Tranmere Reserves against Whitchurch on December 1, 1923, the Birkenhead News reported: “Dean was the star attraction. Splendidly endowed physically he has height and weight and if somewhat lacking in polish this can easily be benefited by careful coaching. “He’s got one strong point and that is his direct shooting. The power he imparts in his drives can be gauged in reference to one drive that hit the woodwork and the upright was nearly uprooted.” By the time he signed for Rovers a couple of months short of his 17th birthday, he was already known as Dixie. | 
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