When we faced newly-crowned champions Everton at Goodison Park on the final day of the 1927/28 campaign, it marked the conclusion of a slightly disappointing season for Herbert Chapman’s men.
A year earlier, we’d reached the FA Cup final and lost 1-0 to Cardiff City, but the team was confident that they would push on. However, the Gunners wound up in 10th place in the league, but the team that day contained a smattering of the players who would go on to achieve greatness at Highbury at the beginning of the 1930s.
Tom Parker, who became the first Arsenal captain to lift silverware in the form of the FA Cup in 1930 was present and correct. So was flying winger Joe Hulme, left-half Bob John, and centre-half Jack Butler.
But the man in form in what proved to be a thrilling 3-3 draw on Merseyside was James Shaw, who only made 11 first-team appearances for the club. Shaw scored four goals in the process before leaving before the dawn of the glory era in the early 1930s. He bagged two goals that afternoon in a match which also saw the great Charlie Buchan make his final appearance in our colours.
But the real star of the show was Everton’s legendary striker William ‘Dixie’ Dean, who had already scored an astonishing 57 league goals that season. He required three more to beat the record of Middlesbrough striker George Camsell, who’d netted 59 goals in the Second Division during the previous season. Surely though, plundering a hat-trick in the final game of the season would be a step too far, even for Dean?
Judging from the deluge of press photographers at Goodison Park that afternoon though, they believed the dream was very much on.
Dean stood 5’10”, and according to statistics, weighed around 12 stone 6lb. After Shaw gave us a shock early lead after two minutes, Dean got to work. After a corner was flicked on by George Martin, Dean headed home from close range. He’d grabbed his first – and Everton’s 100th league goal of the season.
With the vast majority of the 48,715 crowd roaring ‘Dean, Dean, Dean,’ he stepped up to slam the hosts ahead from the penalty spot shortly afterwards, following a foul by John. He’d now equalled Camsell’s record, and had 80 minutes left to break it. Our defence did their level best to stop him - John stuck closely to him as his teammates attempted to crowd Dean out. The _Football Express_ reckoned they were like: ‘flies around honey.’
Dean was thwarted on several occasions by goalkeeper Bill Paterson before Shaw managed to get his second of the game to level things up, but then the magical moment arrived.
With just 10 minutes left, Dean again headed home from an Everton corner, for his 60th goal of the season. 3-2. He was mobbed by the home fans, including one schoolboy who ran onto the pitch to shake his hand before being dragged away by police.
With the record in the bag alongside the championship, Dean seemed unfussed when we equalised courtesy of an own goal, eager to hear the final whistle and allow him and his fellow Toffees the chance to parade the First Division trophy around Goodison Park.
Dean’s 60-goal haul is unsurprisingly an English record that still stands to this day. 349 of his 379 league goals were netted for Everton, while that total is second only to Arthur Rowley’s 434 - albeit Dean’s strike rate of a goal every 0.87 games is better than Rowley’s 0.7.
The legendary figure was still present and correct as we faced Everton on several occasions in the early 1930s. “People said that players like Alex James and David Jack had an aura of greatness about them,” explained Gunners defender George Male to me during our interview in the early 1990s, ‘but so did ‘Dixie’ Dean. He was athletic, had a swagger about him, but he was also a humble hero. It was always an honour to face him on the pitch.”
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