The Thistle Archive

Nicknamed “Dixie” in honour of legendary Everton and England centre-forward Dixie Dean, Deans had a trial with Albion Rovers at the beginning of 1965-66, but joined Motherwell from Neilston Juniors instead, and spent six seasons with the Fir Park side. He signed for Celtic in a £17,500 deal on 31 October 1971 but was unable to play for the Hoops immediately as he was, at the time, serving a six-match ban; during this period he spent his free time working in the Paisley office of the Evening Times.

Dixie played for Celtic from 1971 to 1976, and during this time he scored over 120 goals, scoring in 2 out of 3 matches on average, setting several scoring records on the way. Unfortunately, he is also remembered for the part he played in the semi-final of the 1971–72 European Cup, when Celtic were paired with Inter Milan, whom they had beaten in the final five years earlier. The two legs and extra-time failed to yield a single goal and so the tie proceeded to penalties. Deans, who had come on as a substitute, took the first kick for Celtic and missed. Inter then scored all five of their penalties and moved on to the final against Ajax.

He is the only player in Scottish football history to twice score a hat-trick in a major cup final, achieving the feat in the 1972 Scottish Cup Final as well as the 1974 Scottish League Cup Final, both against Hibernian. In-between these finals, his 1973-74 tally of 33 goals in all competitions had him in contention for a place at the World Cup in Germany '74. He famously scored SIX goals in one particular match at Celtic Park on 17 November 1973; Celtic 7 Partick Thistle 0. In doing so, he matched the all-time record of 6 goals against Thistle in a single game, following on from John Kirkham (Accrington, 1889), Laurie McBain (Queen's Park, 1927) and Harry Melrose (Dunfermline Athletic, 1959).

It was also a post-war record from Celtic's point of view. He didn’t know he was anywhere near Jimmy McGrory’s eight-goals-in-a-game record. If he did, he might have been more precise as he missed a few chances that day. Celtic’s greatest ever scorer, McGrory, scored EIGHT against Dunfermline in a 9-0 win in 1928. However, as Deans came off the park, McGrory came down from the stand and was the first in the tunnel to congratulate the scorer, saying: “I thought you were going to break my record, Dixie, and you should have!” Dixie didn’t just take home the match ball that day. It was signed by all the players and coaching staff of both teams – and a certain James McGrory.

Almost inevitably, Dixie made Willie Ormond's initial 40 man squad for the Germany '74 World Cup, but missed the final cut of 22 which was a real sore point for him - and the Celtic fans. Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course, but surely the bustling front man would've got us that one extra goal that we needed against Zaire? Almost apologetically, Dixie was given two Scottish caps the following season. He played well enough in a friendly versus East Germany at Hampden in October '74, but didn't get on the scoresheet in the 3-0 win. 3 weeks later he was in place for the beginning of the Euros '76 qualifying campaign, when Scotland hosted Spain at Hampden Park. 94,331 were there to see it, but the 1-2 defeat left most disappointed. As the Celtic Fanzine reports, Dixie was substituted halfway through the second period, was subsequently made one of the scapegoats by the press, and was never picked again. Dixie himself also felt that there was the influence of Jock Stein, who as Celtic’s manager was never too keen on his players risking injury with Scotland.

In 1976, Deans was transferred to Luton Town in a £20,000 deal. The 30-year-old did not disappoint the fans scoring 6 goals in 14 appearances including two on his debut against Sheffield United, but Luton manager Harry Haslam was impatient with him due to indiscretions both on and off the pitch and sought to offload him with a month-long loan deal to Carlisle United in February 1977, followed by a 6-week loan-deal with Partick Thistle from the middle of March 1977. With his old Celtic team-mate Bertie Auld managing Thistle, Dixie (or 'the Dix' as Auld called him!) was happier with his football for a short while. A brilliant brace from Dixie gave Thistle a 2-0 league win at Pittodrie on 16th April 1977.

Dixie took up a surprise offer from Australia in the summer of 1977 and was one of nine players imported to promote the new national league. He scored 16 goals in 16 games for Adelaide City before flying back to Scotland in October 1977 at the end of his short term contract. He had a contract in his pocket for the following season and, in November 1977, he signed for Shelbourne of the League of Ireland, where he played 5 league games and failed to score. Dixie headed back to Adelaide in the springtime of 1978, helping to take his mind off his recent divorce. He is still a hero to the Adelaide fans for his prolific goal-scoring abilities. With City he also won the Australian Cup of 1979, defeating St George in the final 3–2. Dixie returned to Scotland in the summer of 1980 and was looking to resume his career with Partick Thistle, Dixie played in three of the pre-season friendlies,scoring twice on his return in a 5-1 win at Forres Mechanice on 26th July 1980. There was paper talk that a deal may have been forthcoming, but there was some sort of delay with clearance papers arriving from Australia and Thistle's interest seemed to peter out.

In his autobiography 'There's Only One Dixie Deans', he revealed that whilst living in Australia, he met Bob Marley, who asked him, “Are you the Dixie Deans who used to play for Celtic?”, and mentioned that he envied Deans for having played at Celtic Park. Upon retiring from the game, Dixie concentrated on running his own pub, and later got into Property Development. He was also involved as a match-day host at Celtic Park, entertaining guests along with other former Celtic players.

Dixie is included in our feature piece, The Definitive Who's Who Of The Partick Thistle Internationalists →