Dave Brown (rugby league footballer Easts)
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| Personal information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Dave Michael Brown | |
| Date of birth | 1913 | |
| Place of birth | Hurstville, Australia | |
| Date of death | 1974 | |
| Position | Centre | |
| Professional clubs* | ||
| Years | Club | Apps (points) |
| 1930-1936 1937-1938 1939-1941 |
Eastern Suburbs Warrington Eastern Suburbs |
|
| Representative teams | ||
| 1930-1936 1933-1936 |
New South Wales Australia |
19 (120) 9 (73) |
|
* Professional club appearances and points |
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David Michael Brown (born 1913 in Hurstville, New South Wales, died 1974) was an Australian rugby league player for the Eastern Suburbs club and the English club Warrington. Brown has often been heralded as one of the game's greatest players, partly due to the fact that many of the records he broke while playing over seventy years ago still stand today. Brown represented Australia on nine occasions, six as captain. His position was at centre.
[edit] Eastern Suburbs
Brown began his sporting career at Sydney's Waverley College playing rugby union. He excelled at cricket and was involved in Surf Lifesaving at Bronte Beach. Australia's first ever rugby league test Captain Arthur Hennessy was a coach at Waverley and he ensured that Brown came to the attention of the Easts club. In 1930 at only sixteen years of age he was graded by Easts and he made six reserve grade appearances before his first grade debut on the wing at age seventeen. Two years later, when he was only nineteen years of age, Brown suddenly lost all of his hair due to alopecia and from then on always wore distinctive leather headgear which became his trademark.
By the opening match of the 1932 season Bown had been installed as the youngest captain in Austrlain rugby league history at 19 years and 12 days.
From 1932 to 1936 under Brown's captaincy, Eastern Suburbs became the dominant team in the league competation, winning the minor premiership on three occasions and winning the league titile twice. It was during this time that Brown set a record in scoring 38 tries in one Australian club season (1935). That season, he also scored the most points in single game (45 against Canterbury). In 1936 Brown signed on for English rugby league team Warrington. He played there for three seasons before returning to Easts for one final season in 1940, where he once again guided his side to a premiership victory.
[edit] Representative
In 1931 at age 18 he became the youngest ever State representative when selected in a New South Wales side.
He was first selected to an Australian squad as a non-playing reserve in 1932. Brown toured England in 1933 and while there set an all-time record of 285 points for the tour, a record that remains unbroken to this day. In 1935 he captained Australia for the first time in all three Tests of the tour to New Zealand. At 22 years , 117 days he become the youngest ever player to captain his country in a Test match. Borwn dominated the Tour scoring 74 points in five appearances. He again captained his country in the three Test Ashes series at home in 1936. He made nine Test appearances in total for Australia between 1933 and 1936.
After his retirement he was sometimes dubbed the 'Bradman of League', an allusion to the great Australian cricketer Sir Donald Bradman. Both men had a habit of scoring a vast amount of points per game in their respective sports setting long standing records.
