Everton legend Dixie Dean’s 60 th goal on the final day of the campaign in 1927/28 famously beat George Camsell’s record for him to become the most-prolific marksman in a single season but as England prepare to face France in the knockout stages of the World Cup for the first time, the pair share another scoring accolade against the Three Lions’ rivals from across the Channel.
Dean and Camsell, his Middlesbrough counterpart, both turned out against France on just two occasions but they each bagged a couple of braces to ensure their four goals apiece is a total that no other England player has surpassed.
The only member of the current England squad to have scored against France is Harry Kane who also netted twice against them in a 3-2 friendly defeat for Gareth Southgate's men against Didier Deschamps side at the Stade de France on June 13, 2017. Therefore the Qatar 2022 captain would need a hat-trick on Saturday night to place himself ahead of the pre-Second World War goal-getting giants.
Here football historian Dr Tosh Warwick delves into his forthcoming biography of George Camsell to reveal the story of how the Boro marksman and his long-term goal rival Dean share England’s goalscoring record against Les Bleus…
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“England’s soccer prestige was never in danger against France…From start to finish the English side held the whip hand, and won by 4-1…with a little more concentration the English score could have been larger, for while the Frenchmen were fast and at time very clever, there was that little touch of class missing from their play.”
The report of English sporting supremacy comes from a clash between the two sides in 1933, a victory gained with Middlesbrough’s George Camsell at the heart of the England attack and en route to a personal milestone of bringing himself level with Dean as the leading England goalscorer against France – a record that remains today. In fact, Camsell’s brace marked another episode in the record breaking goalscoring feats of a former milk boy and pit boy who were constantly breaking goalscoring records in the interwar years.
There are some remarkable similarities in the careers and international trajectories of both Camsell and Dean as they emerged as two of the leading goalscoring figures in the England game.
Born in the early twentieth century – Camsell in 1902 in the Durham mining village of Framwellgate Moor and Dean five years later in Birkenhead, both of the record breaking stars cut their teeth with their local non-league clubs and on to Durham City and Tranmere Rovers before attracting the attention of nearby big clubs Everton and Middlesbrough respectively. In fact, both player made their move to their long-time clubs in 1925, with Dean’s £3,000 March arrival at Goodison fresh off the back of a hat-trick against Rochdale spark earlier that month and a final appearance for Rovers at Boro’s local rivals Darlington, and Camsell moving to Teesside for £800 in similar fashion having hit a hat-trick against Rotherham United in his final Durham City outing.
Two weeks after Camsell’s hat-trick feat, Dean made his first appearance of the 1926/27 campaign for the Toffees on 17 th October 1925 and scored a hat-trick en route to hammering home 33 goals in 44 appearances. In the North East, Camsell had to play a waiting game and top-scored for the Ayresome Park club’s reserves. It was the 1926/27 and 1927/28 campaigns that would bring arguably the two most outstanding goal feats in English football history – all the more remarkable given Dean had recovered from a fractured skull sustained in a horrendous motorcycle accident in summer 1926, whilst Camsell was embarking on a first full campaign with the club starting the season in the reserves. For Camsell, the 1926/27 campaign would see him blast home 59 league goals to help Boro to the Division Two title whilst the season heralded Dean’s England bow.
Between the two, goalscoring records began to tumble and each produced feats almost in parallel, including on Christmas Day 1926 when Camsell scored a remarkable five goals in a 5-3 win at Manchester City whilst Dean scored four of his side’s goals in a 5-4 win over Everton. In early 1927 both went head-to-head for the role of leading the line for England and the former Tranmere star was chosen ahead of the second-tier’s top scorer, scoring a brace on his international debut in a 3-3 draw against Wales as Camsell converted penalty to help Boro to a 2-0 win over Wolves. Dean scored both of England’s goals in the next international, famously helping England to a first win on Scottish soil since 1904.
Overcoming the French Resistance
At the end of the campaign, Dean was selected for the national side’s Continental Tour and hit hat-tricks in successive games against Belgium and Luxembourg before heading to Colombes, a suburb of Paris, where he faced the French. The visitors triumphed 6-0 although reports of who scored the goals vary, with The Daily Mirror report having Dean assisting the opening goal with a ‘fine pass’ to Brown before adding his side’s second, driving the ball into the corner of the net from close range as England humbled their hosts, with the third goal attributed to Brown before a French own goal and a brace for Rigby.
Conversely, The Daily Mail match report had Dean scoring the two opening goals and Rigby the matches final two goals. Regardless of the different contemporary reporting, Dean’s brace is what has been recorded in the record books, including The History of the English Football League which has Dean getting a brace and Rigby only one goal.
Throughout the following campaign, Dean continued as England’s first choice centre forward despite a three match run without scoring, denying Camsell a chance to step in as he notched 33 goals for a relegated Boro side. Of course, this was perhaps unsurprising given that over in the North West, Dean had not only helped his Everton side to the Championship but also broke the league – and Camsell’s – scoring record by notching 60 league goals.
The end of season tour once again sent England to Paris and the home side were again to feel the wrath of Dean. After going behind to an early French goal, England soon sprung into action and cancelled out the home side’s shock lead and led 3-1 at the break, with the Everton star grabbing his country’s third after a fine dribbling and passing move.
The visitors completed the rout with Dean adding his side’s fourth with a high shot over the hapless goalkeeper’s head before Derby’s George Stephenson added a fifth. The post-match dressing room also proved memorable for Dean who, cited in John Keith’s excellent biography of the legend, headed to showers in ‘full view of anyone who came along’ with the striker recalling ‘we were having a shower after the game with all these Parisienne women walking past. They took no notice. They didn’t bother one bit’.
Dean added two more goals in the side’s next fixture two days later against Belgium, retained his place in the England side during the 1927/28 campaign and was on the scoresheet again when England returned to Home Championship matches at his home ground Goodison Park in a 2-1 win over Ireland. However, an injury-ravaged campaign and a failure to find the net against Wales and Scotland saw Dean enter international exile for two years and would go on to make just three more appearances, with his last international goal coming in his penultimate match in a win over Spain, leaving Dean with a total of 18 goals in 16 games.
Out goes Dean, in comes Camsell
Dean’s absence serendipitously provided an opportunity for George Camsell to stake his claim for international honours and he made his international debut against Les Bleus to complete a remarkable rise from a pit boy whose footballing talent was reputedly discovered as he played with workmates during a miners’ strike in the Durham coalfields to gracing the Olympic Stadium. Having been the nearly man for so long, Camsell’s 33 league goals that season had helped Boro to an immediate return to the top-flight had impressed the selectors.
Like Dean, Camsell adapted to the challenges of international football just as he had done throughout his career – by scoring. He grabbed a brace to help the visitors to a 4-1 win on his debut, opening his international account by putting England 2-1 up in the second half after the home side had responded to fellow brace hero Edgar Kail’s opener. The amateur inside right from Dulwich Hamlet added another before Camsell scored the game’s final goal in the closing minutes to cap off an impressive first international appearance.
Camsell added to his haul with four goals in a 5-1 win over Belgium and his fine international form continued later that year with a brace against Ireland in October and a hat-trick against Wales the following month. In today’s England side, 11 goals in four games would not only cement a forward’s place in the starting line-up but would be accompanied by a media frenzy and links to a big money move world’s leading clubs. Instead for Camsell – like Dean – the international wilderness beckoned with the selection committee instead looking elsewhere for goals such was the abundance of goalscoring options at the time.
It would be four years until Camsell returned for England, and like his compatriot by the Mersey, many journalists and supporters alike struggled to explain the absence, with some pointing to favouritism in the selection committee, Dean’s hostility to the FA and Camsell having ‘suffered because he adopted a style that was foreign to him. He forsook the go-ahead stuff and tried to become the polished player’.
‘Camsell celebrates his return: Two goals against France in spite of poor support’
In December 1933, Camsell eventually returned to the England line-up off the back of rich club form that had won acclaim from critics, including one writer who declared: “In the opinion of many Camsell is the best centre-forward in the game today, and he ought to be England’s leader for the match with France on December 6…if England has a better leader than Camsell she is indeed fortunate.”
Another reporter aligned the return with Camsell having ‘developed his game to an extent that none, even of his strongest admirers, ever believed possible. A goal a match, with not always the very best of support, surely proves Camsell to be one of the most dangerous centres in the country’.
At a time of economic hardship and with a high gate price, the December 6 clash at White Hart Lane attracted just 17,097 supporters. Undeterred, Camsell was on the scoresheet with 15 minute of his return after he ‘completely deceived one of the French backs by pretending to pass, and then with his short, quick strides went through to fire a winning shot from about 15 yards’ to fire England into the lead.
The lead was soon doubled before Camsell added his second and England’s third just before half-time. Descriptions of the goal vary from blame on French stopper Defosse for fisting a cross-shot into the goal to The Times’ reporting an ‘extraordinary goal’ scored from the corner flag with ‘the ball swerving on to the crossbar and dropping over the line’. Birmingham’s Grosvenor added a fourth for the hosts after the break before the visitors finally got themselves on the scoresheet as RC Paris’ Émile Veinante hit home a consolation goal.
The two-goal performance – levelling with Dean as England’s joint top goalscorer against the French with four goals - brought praise in the press with the former pit boy praised the ‘complete centre forward’ in a ‘personal triumph’, whilst The Daily Mirror hailed Camsell as a ‘definite success on his return to the side’. Once again, despite Camsell’s brace, he once again found himself in international exile as the spot.
In total, Camsell would achieve a goals-to-games record for England with 18 goals in 9 games – the hitting the net the same amount of times as Dean but in fewer international appearances. But of course, Dean’s goals had all been scored in 9 matches!
As if the parallels between these two greats of the England game weren’t enough, the similarities continued in death, with Dean dying at Goodison Park attending a Merseyside Derby and Camsell passing away at Middlesbrough General Hospital, a stone’s throw from Ayresome Park. Fittingly, following the unveiling of Dean’s statue in 2001 and Camsell’s earlier this year, both men are now commemorated outside the home grounds of the club’s they loved.
Adapted from Tosh Warwick’s biography of George Camsell, to be published next year by Heritage Unlocked. Visit www.heritageunlocked.com for more information.
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