Irvin Brown (20 September 1935 – 20 November 2005) was an English professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who played as a

centre half In the sport of association football, a defender is an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categ ...

in the

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, it is the oldest football league in Association football around the world, the w ...

for

Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club, commonly referred to as Brighton, is a professional football club based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Their home gr ...

and Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic. He also played

non-league football Non-League football describes association football, football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is ...

for Poole Town and Hamworthy United.

Life and career

Brown was born in 1935 in

Lewes Lewes () is the county town of East Sussex, England. The town is the administrative centre of the wider Lewes (district), district of the same name. It lies on the River Ouse, Sussex, River Ouse at the point where the river cuts through the Sou ...

Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...

, where he attended the local

secondary modern school A secondary modern school () is a type of secondary school that existed throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 1944 until the 1970s under the Tripartite System. Secondary modern schools accommodated the majority (70–75%) of pupil ...

. He played football for Lewes St Mary's and represented

East Sussex East Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Kent to the north-east, West Sussex to the west, Surrey to the north-west, and the English Channel to the south. The largest settlement ...

at schoolboy level; it was while playing schools football that he was spotted by

manager Don Welsh. After a trial, he was taken onto the club's ground staff in 1951 and signed professional forms on his 17th birthday in September 1952.

National Service National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act ...

obligations and inability to dislodge captain Ken Whitfield from the

centre-half In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

position meant Brown did not make his senior debut until 9 November 1957, in a

Third Division South The Third Division South of the Football League was a tier in the English football league system from 1921 to 1958. It ran in parallel with the Third Division North with clubs elected to the League or relegated from Division Two allocated to on ...

match against

Northampton Town Northampton Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in the town of Northampton, England. The team competes in EFL League One, League One, the third level of the English football league system. Founded in 1897, the c ...

. Albion won 4–2, and "the critics accorded him a fair share of the credit for ... their first victory at Northampton for 11 years", but he returned to the reserves for the next match. Whitfield was reported to have asked for a transfer the following month, but this came to nothing, and Brown appeared just twice more for Albion's first team before moving on after seven years with the club. On 17 September 1958, Don Welsh signed Brown for a second time, for Third Division club Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic. The following day, Brighton signed his brother

Alan Alan may refer to: People *Alan (surname), an English and Kurdish surname * Alan (given name), an English given name ** List of people with given name Alan ''Following are people commonly referred to solely by "Alan" or by a homonymous name.'' * ...

, also a centre half. Brown impressed immediately for Bournemouth: on his debut, the ''

People The term "the people" refers to the public or Common people, common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty. I ...

'' described him as "a shining light howith the coolness of a veteran ... not only kept Higham in check but maintained complete command of the middle". He went on to play 65 Third Division matches for Bournemouth before joining Poole Town of the Southern League in 1962. He remained at Poole for several years, and was for a long time associated with nearby Hamworthy United, as player, manager and physiotherapist. After his death, the Hamworthy club set up a trust fund to raise money to build a stand in his memory, and since then have held an annual Irvin Brown Day to raise funds for the club. Brown was one of six brothers who all played football; two younger brothers, Alan and Stan, played at Football League level. He married Sheila Walter in 1956. By the time he signed for Bournemouth, the couple had a daughter. After giving up full-time football, he remained in the

Poole Poole () is a coastal town and seaport on the south coast of England in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole unitary authority area in Dorset, England. The town is east of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

, area where he worked as a carpenter and where he died in 2005 at the age of 70.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Irvin 1935 births 2005 deaths Sportspeople from Lewes English men's footballers Men's association football defenders Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. players AFC Bournemouth players Poole Town F.C. players Hamworthy United F.C. players English Football League players Southern Football League players English football managers Hamworthy United F.C. managers 20th-century English sportsmen