‘Dixie’ Dean scored the last consecutive England hat-tricks.

It might be a surprise that the last player to score a hat-trick in consecutive England matches was William Ralph ‘Dixie’ Dean, the pre-war Everton centre-forward.

The second of those three-goal hauls came on this day in 1927.

Dean is best remembered for scoring 60 goals in one top-flight season for the Toffees, a record that still stands. He notched two on his England debut, a 3-3 draw against Wales at Wrexham in February 1927, and his consecutive hat-tricks – equalling Vivian Woodward’s feat – came in his third and fourth internationals.

Belgium were humbled 9-1 before 35,000 fans in Brussels on 11 May in that year, Dean scoring after 36, 47 and 70 minutes.

Ten days later England took on little Luxembourg before a more modest 5,000 in the ‘Stade de la Frontiere’ and Dean’s goals after 18, 65 and 72 minutes then contributed to a   5-2 victory.

This rich vein of form continued. Later in the same month he scored twice in England’s 6-0 win in France. His international career was over at 25 – but not before he had amassed 18 goals in 16 matches.