By Claudia Gardner:
Seventeen years ago when Brian Brown represented Mount Pellier Football Club in the Hanover under-17 football competition at age 11, his coach predicted that he would make the Jamaican national football team, due to the good tackling skills he possessed for his age.
“Despite his small stature, he is not afraid to tackle and win balls from opponents who are almost twice his size. He is one of Jamaica’s future Reggae Boys. Football is in his blood,” the coach, Brenton Moodie had said of the then very diminutive Brown.
Brown’s foray into competitive football is even more interesting. His coach had said that the very first day he showed up for training, he told him he wanted to “play left back”.
He said despite his age and size, he selected Brown to be on the team’s starting eleven as, in addition to showing great courage, he had adequately mastered the fundamental football skills and was impressive on the field of play.
Not only was Brown skilled, but he also was able to successfully argue his case, after being told by Moodie, that he was “too short” to play the position he desired.
Brown told Moodie that Stephen “Shorty” Malcolm who was a very short player, used to play in that position and that he did well. The coach could not refute the argument and so granted him his wish. Brown impressed him at training and secured his space in the defensive position for his community team.
So at age 11, just three feet and six inches tall and weighing less than 70 pounds, he began representing Mount Pelier in the Hanover Cooperative Credit Union’s-sponsored Social Development Commission’s Under -17 tournament, during which he mesmerized spectators with his impressive slide-tackling skills, similar to the manner in which he, now at five feet and 11 inches and 185 pounds dances around defenders to slam balls into the back of the net.
Then a grade five student at the Sandy Bay Primary and Junior High School, Brown had pointed out in an interview, that he started playing football at the school at age seven, and that his father, former Seba United striker Brian ‘Rambo’ Brown was responsible for teaching him the rudiments of football and would also take him to football games.
He had also indicated that his younger brothers, who were only four and seven years old at the time were aspiring footballers had very good football skills.
Rusea’s High School
Fast-forward seven years later and Brown, became the leading all-time goal scorer for Rusea’s High School, one of the most prolific goalscorers in schoolboy football history and a few years later, Hanover’s biggest football superstar.
Brown was the toast of the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) awards ceremony, when he won the Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards for the 2010 season for the DaCosta Cup.
Back then, he scored a total of 20 goals and ended the season as the joint leading scorer in the DaCosta Cup, along with St James High School’s Allan Ottey. He also won the Golden Boot for scoring the most goals in the second round of the DaCosta Cup competition.
Aston Villa Trials
In January 2012 the announcement came that Brown at age 19, and who was being hounded by Premier League Clubs such as Reno, Montego Bay United and Harbour View FC, was invited to England to undergo a three-week trial stint with Premier League club Aston Villa and would pull out of the Reggae Boyz’s training camp, which was preparing for three friendly matches that February.
Brown began his professional career with Montego Bay United in the Red Stripe Premier League during which he made 17 appearances and scored three goals in the 2012-13 season.
Reggae Boyz
He made his international debut for Jamaica’s national senior team on 15 November 2013 in a friendly game against Trinidad and Tobago. His next international appearance came on March 26, 2019 in another friendly, this time against Costa Rica.
He was selected for Jamaica’s squad for the 2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup where he made appearances in group stage matches against Honduras and El Salvador, as well as in the semifinals against the United States. He netted his first international goal on September 6 2019 against Antigua and Barbuda in the CONCACAF Nations League in the 67th minute.
Harbour View FC
When he joined Harbour View FC in 2013, Brown became a nightmare for defenders in the Red Stripe Premier League, netting 18 goals in 32 appearances in the 2013-14 season to become the league’s top scorer. He walked away with the Golden Boot Award, and declared in a subsequent interview that goal-scoring was “his job” and he takes it “very seriously”.
United States Leagues
Brown has spent the majority of his professional career in the United States, starting in 2014 when he was loaned by Harbour View to Major League Soccer franchise the Philadelphia Union. He also turned out for Charlotte Independence in the United Soccer League where he scored nine goals in 27 appearances.
He returned to Harbour View after his loan stint ended on December 31 that year.
After only getting the opportunity to make just eight appearances for Philadelphia in which he scored two goals, Brown had lamented the fact that the playing time he was given was highly inadequate, at the same time crediting his performance there as “fair”.
Since that time, the Hanover native has donned the colours of Indy Eleven and Reno 1868 FC, which was his last stop before leaving for Europe midseason in 2019.
The Rusea’s High School old boy left Reno 1868 on a high as the club’s all-time leading goalscorer, where, during his two-year stay he netted 28 goals in 70 appearances.
During that period of his USL career he scored a total of 37 goals and registered 20 assists.
Albania
In July 2019, Brown transferred to Albanian club FK Partizani, and by August, mere weeks later again created history.
Brown, then 26 years old, unleashed a hat-trick within a ten-minute span in what was his first game for FK Partizani, propelling them to becoming Albanian Super League champions with a 4-2 defeat of rivals FK Kukesi.
A substitute, he had come off the bench in the dying moments of the match and decisively shook off his opponents, striking in the 88th minute for the equalizer and then in the 94th and in the 99th minute of added time, giving the glory to his team, which was initially trailing 2-1, only three minutes from full time.
In May 2021, Brown returned to the United States and to the United Soccer League (USL) championship after signing to New Mexico United for the 2021, following his Albanian stint.
His former Charlotte Independence coach Troy Lesesne, who now serves as New Mexico’s head coach and technical director, hailed Brown as being not only a lethal goalscorer, and a huge boost to the team’s attack, but a footballer who “loves putting his teammates in goalscoring positions”
Already, Brown who sports the number 99 jersey, has found his form. A few weeks ago he slotted home a free kick in the 40th minute which earned him the “play of the match” and was also awarded the “Pepsi Man of the match”. A week before that created a major assist which
But goal-scoring, rapid bursts of sprints, are not the only things admirable about Brown. From childhood, he has always been polite and well-mannered. He is also a man who loves his community and never forgets his friends or where he came from. Fame and fortune has never “gotten to his head”.
