Former Connecticut coach played in first World Cup
GREENWICH — It’s 1930, Uruguay. The best soccer players from around the globe gather for the inaugural World Cup. Among them: James Brown Sr.
“To be talented enough and skilled enough to be selected for a national team is not just an honor, it is a real recognition of first-class talent for each country,” said his son, George Brown.
And his son knows what he’s talking about, himself having played for America on the United States men’s national soccer team.
As the 2022 World Cup kicks off Sunday in Qatar, George Brown said his thoughts will be with his late father, who died in 1994.
George Brown said he can still remember how graceful his father was playing.
James Brown Sr. grew up in Scotland, but came to America as a youth looking for the father who had abandoned his family. He ended up starting a professional soccer career that saw him play for the U.S. in the 1930 World Cup — even scoring a goal — before becoming a highly successful coach in Greenwich.
“He had never played organized soccer in Scotland,” George Brown said. “Within two years, he was on the U.S. World Cup team. … He used to play street soccer with a little tennis ball and if they couldn’t afford a tennis ball, they used a rolled up rag tied with string.”
Upon arriving in America, his son said, it didn’t take long for his father’s natural talent and ability to shine through. His performances in the old American Soccer League caught the eye of those putting the World Cup team together.
After winning their first two tournament games, the American team ran into the buzzsaw that was Argentina in the semifinals.
“My father said that was one of the most brutal games he had ever played,” Brown said. “He said the field was unusually wet for the match. … It was a very tough game. His Argentinian defender took great delight in scooping up handfuls of mud and throwing them in my father’s face.”
The second half of the game got “very physical,” Brown said, with major injuries on the U.S. team, including one American who continued playing with what was believed to be a broken leg and another who had to keep a rag in his mouth after losing four teeth.
The tight game turned into a 6-1 blowout win for Argentina but the one American goal came from James Brown Sr., which the manager’s report called “a powerful shot.” Even after that accomplishment, Brown said his father was never one to brag.
“It really was modesty on his part,” Brown said. “He rarely initiated a conversation about his career. There were a lot of people in Greenwich who simply were not aware of his background until he was elected into the Soccer Hall of Fame.”
James Brown Sr. played professionally in the U.S. — and in England for some of that country’s most famous clubs including Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspurs. When his playing career ended, he returned to America, settling in Connecticut as the head coach of the Greenwich High School soccer team and later at Brunswick School.
“It is, in fact, the finest game in the world because of the myriad of skills that are required. … I can’t think of a better game for youth than soccer,” George Brown said. “He made them understand that it’s a very simple game, which some coaches just made overly complicated.”
James Brown Sr. also worked to develop his son’s own talent, creating the Connecticut State Amateur League so they could play together.
“He recognized that I had skill and there was no league in Connecticut,” Brown said. “With his beat-up old car, he traveled around Connecticut and he got a number of clubs to join. He revived an old league called The Connecticut League and there ended up being eight or 10 teams in it. It actually was a thriving league and we won the championship in our second year.”
Brown said his father, who was 43 at the time, let him be the primary goal scorer between the two of them. One time, though, he tried to return the favor.
“What he would do when he was releasing (the ball) for me is he’d take the ball and drag it inside and then he would yell,” Brown recalled. “He would say ‘Go!’ and I would run and I would stay onside and I would break for the ball. He would split the defenders and so at one point I picked up the ball and we switched positions. I cut inside and then I released the ball between the fullbacks just as he would do for me and this time I shouted out ‘Go!’ and he stopped dead in his tracks and said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding. I’m 43 years old.’ ”
Like his father, George Brown played for the U.S. men’s national team. Although he doesn’t have a World Cup under his belt, he did win bronze at the Pan-American Games. He too had a brief stint coaching at his alma mater, Greenwich High School, and played professionally.
Both father and son were inducted into the U.S. National Soccer Hall of Fame — the only fatherson duo to do so.
They are also both in the Connecticut State Hall of Fame and the New England Hall of Fame.
“It’s wonderful and I can look back and say my grandfather and my father were part of what the U.S. had to go through to get to where we are today,” said James Brown, George Brown’s son.
James Brown is a soccer fanatic in his own right, choosing to put pen to paper to tell his father’s and grandfather’s story in his book “Mud, Blood and Studs.” The Greenwich native now living in France serves as the family’s unofficial historian.
“I’d heard all the great stories that are passed down from generation to generation at all the weddings and funerals and birthdays and other gatherings, but I had never done a deep dive and read the match reports and articles about my grandfather and even my dad,” James Brown said. “I wanted to read those things and I put my head down in 2016 and just dove in.”
All those stories will be at the forefront of James Brown’s mind as he tunes in for this year’s World Cup. The former Greenwich residents plan to gather at George Brown’s home in New Jersey. While skeptical of the United States’ chances, George Brown said he will still be rooting for them.
“I get quietly excited watching the matches,” George Brown said. “I can’t help but think how far we’ve come.”