After 22 years, 560 games, 2,000 yellow cards and 114 reds, it’s time for the controversial man in black to step down
hat most insistent of matchday questions, touching on mysteries of identity and masculinity – “who’s the wanker in the black?” – has rarely felt a more pointed psychological inquiry than when directed by 25,000 partisan voices toward Mike Dean.
He had, inevitably, the very last word in the most thrilling final-day drama in Premier League history 10 years ago, when Manchester City’s Sergio Agüero scored a last-second goal to rip the league title away from rivals Manchester United. Dean’s memorably killjoy contribution was give Agüero a booking for removing his shirt during the euphoric celebrations. “I had no choice,” he later suggested. “Those are the rules.
As the end has approached for Dean, however, he has broken his silence a few times, for friendly reminiscences about his career with the former player Peter Crouch, and with the BBC’sThe revelations in those chats have stopped well short of soul-searching, but they did give an insight into that other question asked by the more empathetic football fan: why on earth would anyone want to put themselves through that ordeal on a weekly...
For the first 10 years, as he rose through the ranks of local and semi-professional leagues, he worked in a chicken processing plant. Even when he worked in the lower divisions of the professional league, Dean kept up the day job. “I would start my shift at six o’clock, then drive to Carlisle or Scunthorpe or wherever late afternoon for a match, get back at three in the morning and then back on my shift at six.
Perhaps increasingly, the knockabout anger of that post-match recrimination incites something nastier. In February 2021, Dean sent off the West Ham midfielder Tomáš Souček, very harshly, in the closing seconds of a draw with Fulham. Afterwards his family received death threats. “They were saying they knew where we lived and they were going to petrol bomb the house.” He stepped away from refereeing for a few games. “I had West Ham four weeks later – I was surprised to get it so soon.
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