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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.

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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,