Mike Dean, for the best part of 30 years, seemed to be there at some of Stoke City’s biggest moments – and it sounds like he will be living up to fans’ old song for him, not necessarily in a bad way, as he starts his new career.
It was perhaps an ominous start when Stoke lost their first match with him at the helm to Macclesfield Town in August 1998.
He was in charge of a play-off semi-final against Gillingham – a 3-2 home win when Gudjon Thordarson couldn’t believe the amount of injury time added when Andy Hessenthaler scored very late on; the 2-0 miracle second leg comeback at Cardiff in the 2002 play-off semi-finals, the 0-0 draw with Leicester that sealed promotion to the Premier League in 2008 and the Middlesbrough game early the next season that featured Stoke’s first Premier League red card…
In fact, it became a bit of a habit to send off Stoke players. Amdy Faye was followed by Abdoulaye Faye (at Hull), Andy Wilkinson (at Portsmouth), Dean Whitehead (against Tottenham) and Ryan Shawcross (at Sunderland).
Mark Hughes slammed Dean when he penalised Shawcross for marking too tightly and awarded a penalty to Manchester City in 2016. “The only time in the history of the Premier League that anyone has been pulled up for holding at a corner was me and I’m sure Mike Dean inventing a rule change on the spot,” said Shawcross when he later turned columnist. “Mark Hughes was right when he said afterwards that Dean had enjoyed being centre of attention.”
That was a consensus among Stoke supporters and Dean was serenaded to a chant that it was “all about him” when he brought his whistle to the bet365 Stadium.
Anyway, the point is that Dean has promised not to shrink away from the spotlight as he starts his new life as a TV pundit.
“I’ve had a chat with a few of the referees and made it clear that if they make a bad decision, I won’t be sitting on the fence or defending the indefensible and they were OK with that,” said the 55-year-old, who has quit his role as a dedicated VAR and referee coach to sit on the panel of Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday.
“I want to be able to do the job properly and give proper insight.
“Equally, I’ll be happy to highlight good decisions as it will be good to give refs some credit.”
Dean was an on-field referee for 27 years – 22 of those in the Premier League. His final year for the PGMOL was spent at Stockley Park as a dedicated VAR and he admits he did not get the same satisfaction.
“For me refereeing was the best job in the world, and I felt lucky to be able to be paid for basically doing my hobby,” said Dean, who is also the new face of the Family and Friends Railcard.
“But after 27 years of refereeing, and 22 in the Premier League, I felt like I had done my time and wanted to start the next chapter of my life.
“It didn’t take long for me to realise that being on VAR wasn’t for me. Having to travel down to London to then be stuck in a room, telling on-field referees whether their decisions were right or wrong didn’t give me the same enjoyment.
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