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Mike Dean is one of modern football’s more intriguing figures. In his 22-year career as a Premier League referee, Dean embodied an elite brand of fastidiousness, dishing out 114 red cards, more than 3,000 yellows and an untold number of finger-wags, eye-rolls and off-you-pops. Dean is the walking rule book who Garth Crooks once likened to “a petulant school teacher”. On the other hand, he may have been a stickler on the field, but he was also a showman. There were the stepovers. The celebrations after setting up a goal with a smart advantage. The flourish with which he displayed a second yellow and mandatory back-pocket red. “I love what I do, there’s a touch of arrogance and I know that,” he once said. How can a man who looks, sounds, lives like someone disputing a late return fee at the library also possess such panache? And that’s without mentioning the pool parties, terrace chanting at Tranmere and fondness for ballroom dancing. Truly, Dean is a man of multitudes.
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