Official has attracted the ire of supporters but shows his human side on former striker’s podcast, as he nears final whistle
A man who seems so laid back he could probably serve as a draught excluder at the gates of Winterfell Castle, it spoke volumes that after a senior career spanning 19 years, it wasn’t until seven months into Peter Crouch’s retirement from professional football that the scales blinding him from the truth about referees finally fell from his eyes. A recent conversation over drinks with Mike Dean convinced the veteran of more than 600 games to realise that referees are human just like the rest of us, rather than unthinking, emotionless, card-brandishing cybernetic androids who simply materialise, fully formed like some sort of buzz-killing fun-assassins dispatched Terminator-style from the future.
A man who does not so much polarise opinion among football fans of various teams as pull off the impressive feat of completely uniting it, Dean once found himself the subject of an unsuccessful petition signed by more than 100,000 Arsenal fans calling for him to be forbidden from refereeing any more of their team’s games. Renowned for his showmanship, occasional pomposity and apparent desire to be the centre of attention in any match he is tasked with officiating, he has for some time now been the best known and most unpopular of England’s top-flight refs.
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