EXCLUSIVE: Artist Paul Trevillion speaks to the ECHO’s Chris Beesley about his vivid recollections of watching Everton’s Dixie Dean play on February 22, 1937

Sports artist Paul Trevillion has revealed that watching Dixie Dean play 87 years ago today inspired him to base all his illustrations of players heading the ball on the legendary Everton centre-forward.

Trevillion, whose 90^th birthday next month will be marked with a special article in the ECHO, has immortalised the likenesses of some of the biggest names in world sport during his stunning career that spans over 70 years. However, despite being a lifelong Spurs fan having been born in Tottenham and educated at St Francis de Sales School opposite White Hart Lane, it’s Goodison Park great Dean who was his original and most-admired football hero.Shortly before his third birthday, Trevillion was taken to his first ever game, an FA Cup replay between Tottenham Hotspur and Everton on February 22, 1937. The north London outfit, playing in the Second Division at the time, would come from 3-1 down to triumph 4-3 with a brace of goals for the hosts in the last three minutes turning the tie on its head but it was the presence of a 30-year-old Dean, who was lining up alongside his 17-year-old successor Tommy Lawton (who played inside left) for the first of just nine occasions that they were paired together that transfixed the fledgling fan.Trevillion told the ECHO: “When Tottenham drew Everton in the cup, I was now coming up to my third birthday, my dad said to me: ‘Paul, if they’d have drawn at Everton at home, I would have took you to see the match.’ I said: ‘Oh no.’

“They drew 1-1 at Everton and my dad, who was a bus conductor, said: ‘The replay is on Monday, I’ll work my shift and then I’ll take you.’ I said: ‘Will Dixie be playing?’

“He said: ‘Yes, Dixie Dean will be playing and so will Tommy Lawton.’ I don’t know how my dad knew that but it must have been in the papers because when I did come to the ground, I knew immediately that everyone, all they were talking about was Dixie Dean.

“Nobody else, it was: ‘Dixie, Dixie, Dixie, Dixie, Dixie Dean, Dixie Dean, Dixie Dean.’ I got into the ground and I wanted to see Spurs players because I was a Spurs supporter but then when Everton came out and I saw Dixie, who whole stadium rose.

“I’ve never heard a noise like it. I mean this – never.

“I’ve been to Tottenham, even their new ground I’ve been there, but not like they greeted Dixie Dean. They all said: ‘Good old Dixie,’ and he actually waved to the crowd.

“It was unbelievable and I thought: ‘Dixie Dean, he just like I imagined he would be, just like my dad had described him.’ He looked unbelievable, he had that black hair, he had a big smile on his face and bingo, I couldn’t take my eyes off him throughout the whole match I watched just the one player, Dixie Dean, that’s all I watched.

“He scored two goals but my dad took me behind the goal in case the crowd was too big, he could lift me over the top. I saw Dixie get his second goal with the side of the foot, it wasn’t a thunderbolt – the one before was – but when Tommy Lawton scored the first goal, everyone said: ‘That was Dixie, that was Dixie’ because they wanted to believe it was Dixie but I knew it wasn’t Dixie because I hadn’t taken my eyes off him and it was different to how Dixie rose.”

It’s often said that you shouldn’t meet your idols but 23 years later, Trevillion teamed up with Dean to produce the Everton legend’s illustrated life story that ran for 21 weeks in the ECHO. The artist admits that witnessing Dean’s incredible aerial ability in that FA Cup tie has stuck with him in the subsequent decades and has shaped all of his drawings since.

Trevillion said: “When I met Dixie Dean when I was working for the Liverpool Echo in the 1960/61 season, he said to me: ‘What is your memory of that game? You must have one memory.’

“I said: “The thing I never forgot was when you were running, you were on the right side of the field, the ball came over and bang, you hit it with your head. I’ve never seen a header like it.