 “YOUNGSTER, you’ve come here to take my place . . . anything I can do for you, I will,” Dixie Dean’s words to a young Tommy Lawton, soon after he had signed from Burnley, showed his generosity of spirit. They also underlined that the great man’s Goodison career was drawing to a close. Injured for much of 1933-34 – he played just 12 games, scoring nine goals – he still scored regularly in the seasons that followed. But the effects of almost a decade at the top, in an often brutal era for footballers, was taking its toll on his body. In 1934-35 he scored 27 goals in 43 games, the following season, again interrupted by injury, hit 17 in 29, then in 1937-38 – the season Lawton arrived, hit 27 in 40. Dixie might have been a one club man as a player, but he was too outspoken, too strong a personality for him to be kept on in a coaching capacity. He had been the first number nine in world football, but there was never any chance of him becoming Everton’s first manager. “This chap Kelly had no time for the older lads, especially me,” he later explained. Club secretary Theo Kelly had designs on the manager’s chair himself, and Dean added: “I just couldn’t get on with him. He wanted to get rid of me and also one or two others who looked like being in with a chance of becoming manager. “Kelly started telling lies about me and things got worse. He wanted the manager’s job and wanted to get rid of me. So I had it out with him and decided to move on.” The ill feeling between the two could perhaps be gauged from the fact that Dean finished his Goodison career just one game short of 400 league appearances and one goal short of 350 league strikes. Notts County were the beneficiaries in March 1938. And the £3,000 transfer fee Everton received was the same fee he had been bought for – easily the best transfer business in Goodison history. Once again, however, injuries dogged his time at Meadow Lane where he made just nine appearances in 10 months. | 
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