Tuesday, December 17 – 1929
Allegations against three International footballers – “Dixie” Dean (Everton), Donald Mackinlay (formerly Liverpool and now Prescot Cables), and Louis Page (Burnley) – were considered at a joint meeting of the Lancashire Football Association and Liverpool Football Association in Liverpool yesterday.
The Commission was acting for the Football Association, and consisted of Messrs. T. Lathwaite (in the chair), E. Clayton, E.F. James, J. Butterfield, J. Grant (secretary of the Liverpool F.A.), and F. Hargreaves (secretary of the Lancashire F.A.).
The charge against the three players arose out of a six-a-side boys’ football match in connection with a fete arranged by the St. Edward’s Orphanage, Liverpool.
The players named were stated to have assisted in a six-a-side boys’ football tournament during the close season, but the Commission decided that taking gate money at the fete of which the boys’ six-a-side competition was only a small part, did not constitute a breach of the rules of the Football Association.
The sports were organised for boys by the St. Edward Orphanage, explained that his orphanage mission had no control, and there was no case against the three players.
Father-Superior Cuerlin, of St. Edward’s Orphanage, explained that his orphanage organised the fete, held on August Bank Holiday last, when the three players – Dean, Mackinlay, and Page – were invited to enter boys’ teams for a six-a-side tournament, at which there was no gate charges and no payments.
The boys got nothing, but Dean, thinking his boys had done so well in winning the competition, bought each of them a medal and paid their expenses.
(Evening Telegraph, 17-12-1929)
"Play Up, Liverpool" 