The opening of the Dixie Dean Hotel in Liverpool is the latest step in the creation of the country’s first ever football quarter as it joins the nearby Shankly Hotel on historic Victoria Street; ensuring that over 140 years of history is represented for both Reds and Blues in this football-mad city.
A number of Everton legends were in attendance for the opening of the No9 restaurant on Friday which heralded the first phase of the 100-bedroom hotel’s launch just yards or so from its sister building, which opened back in 2015.
With the hotel named after the Everton hero the restaurant name refers to Dean’s famous shirt number and boasts an interior featuring a blue colour palette, synonymous with the club’s famous colour, as well as a museum of memorabilia and history dedicated to the footballing icon and his career.
The bar and restaurant areas have a rustic industrial feel with original beams, wooden panelling and brickwork retained in a nod to the building's Gothic architecture while vibrant colours - including Everton’s famous Royal blue - feature throughout the interior with deep luxurious upholstered chairs, sofas and fabrics.
William Ralph "Dixie" Dean was born on January 22, 1907 in Birkenhead and began his career at his hometown club Tranmere Rovers before moving on to Everton, the club he had supported as a child, and is still regarded as a club legend due to his goalscoring exploits.
A fearsome centre forward he is best known for his sensational 1927/28 campaign, which saw him score a record 60 league goals in a single season while finding the net 383 times for the club between 1925 and 1937.
The Dixie Dean hotel is a partnership between Lawrence and Katie Kenwright’s Signature Living Hotel Group, along with Barbara Dean and Melanie Prentice, Dean’s daughter and granddaughter, and follows a similarly successful endeavour involving the group and Bill Shankly’s family.
The Liverpool themed Shankly Hotel, which sits across the road, is one of the city’s most popular destinations which has won multiple tourism awards and boasts maximum occupancy most nights while offering communal rooms that can sleep up to 24 guests in multiple beds, along with dancefloors, bars, hot tubs, a swimming pool and even a virtual Bill Shankly who mingles with guests in the bar.
In February it was announced that the hotel would feature in a new BBC One fly on the wall TV show called: A Very Northern Hotel, which will offer viewers a behind the scenes look at the day-to-day running of the £12million venue
Despite their fierce respective loyalties to their clubs, Dean and Shankly were great friends and led an iconic era of football as true giants and gentlemen of the game with Shankly once describing Dean as: “The greatest centre forward there will ever be. His record of goalscoring is the most amazing thing under the sun. He belongs in the company of the supremely great, like Beethoven, Shakespeare and Rembrandt.”
Talking of the two hotels, Lawrence Kenwright, Signature Living chairman, said: “Our goal was always to build two iconic hotels that would represent the two greatest football teams in English football and to leave a lasting legacy to Everton and Liverpool football clubs. There is no country in the world that has two iconic hotels, side by side celebrating the rich history of their football teams and city with two revered footballing icons.”
Mr Kenwright hopes that the area will become the world’s first football quarter and as well as the new hotel he is planning a ‘football walk of fame’, which will include life-size bronze statues of Bill Shankly and Dixie Dean while there are also plans to line the street with trees, night-lights and two grand canopies at each hotel entrance.
Commenting on the opening of the hotel, Dixie Dean’s Granddaughter, co-owner and Guest Relations Director Melanie Prentice said: “We are thrilled and excited to open the doors to the Dixie Dean hotel. My Grandad would be extremely proud of what we have achieved.
“I think he would really approve of the interior design and a hotel celebrating his life. If he were here now he would take a seat in the corner of the hotel with a trusty pint of Guinness and have a laugh and a chat with the customers and fans coming to the hotel named in his honour.”