Leather balls that gained weight in rain (up to 1 kg each).
No substitutes, even after being kicked half to death by 1930s centre-halves.
No physios or recovery, no sports science
Pitches like ploughed fields by November
In the season he scored 60 goals, he scored more goals than 14 of the 22 1st division clubs. Man City's entire team scored 61 goals that season, just 1 more then DD.

60 goals in 39 games. That’s roughly 1.5 per game. Who does that - who has done that since, at the top level - anywhere?

Tommy Lawton, who succeeded Dean at Everton and is one of England’s greatest centre-forwards, said: “He was the greatest centre-forward there will ever be. I never saw his equal.”
Stanley Matthews called him “one of the finest goalscorers the game has ever produced.”
Bill Shankly said: “Dixie Dean was the greatest centre-forward there ever was or ever will be.”

The only players historically who come close:

1. Gerd Müller (Germany / Bayern Munich)
• The only striker who’s genuinely comparable statistically.
• 68 goals in 62 games for West Germany; 566 in 607 for Bayern.
• Like Dean, stocky, lethal, modest — no tricks, just deadly efficiency.
• Once scored 40 in a Bundesliga season (still the record).
Closest pure goal-per-minute match.

⸻

2. Jimmy Greaves (Tottenham / England)
• 357 top-flight goals in England — the best since Dean’s era.
• Similar in that “it looked easy” — natural finisher’s instinct, ice cold in the box.
• Would’ve broken every record if not for injury and the ’70 World Cup snub.
Closest English heir to Dean’s throne.

⸻

3. Ferenc Puskás (Hungary / Real Madrid)
• Not a traditional No. 9 but his scoring was ridiculous — 84 goals in 85 for Hungary, 514 in 529 club games.
• Combined Dean’s deadliness with elite technique.
• Revered by peers the way Dean was in England.

Anyone talking about the greatest in the game ever needs to consider DD. It might have been the best part of a century ago but in 40 years time, Ali will still have been one of the greatest. Everything is of it's era but DDs record really is something to behold.


Obviously used chatGPT here.