Male entering town (Deal), awfully shabby (4,2,4)
I believe the answer is:
down-at-heel
'shabby' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'male entering town deal awfully' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'male' could be 'he' (he refers to a man) and 'he' is found within the answer.
'town' could be 't' (abbreviation for town) and 't' is found within the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for down-at-heel that I've seen before include "Looking shabby" , "In poor circumstances" , "Having a poor, shabby appearance" , "Generally shabby" .)