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Alan Brown, the fast bowler who took 707 first-class wickets for Kent and ended a 13-year career by helping the county win their first County Championship in 57 years, has died aged 90. Brown died on 15 October at Longfield in Kent, two days short of his 91st birthday, after suffering from cancer. The club announced his death on 16 October.
Brown took 743 first-class wickets at 24.66 across 251 matches, 707 of them in 237 appearances for Kent between 1957 and 1970 — a tally that leaves him 17th on the county’s all-time list. He played two Tests for England, both on the 1961-62 MCC tour of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, and took 3-27 in Pakistan’s second innings on debut at Lahore. He was also, simultaneously, a centre-forward who scored more than 100 goals in Kent non-league football.
A genuine quick from a Nottinghamshire pit village
Born at Rainworth, near Mansfield, on 17 October 1935, Brown worked as a miner before National Service brought him to Kent in 1954 and never really took him away again. At 6ft 3in he was, in his early years, properly fast, with an action completed by a long drag of the back foot — the trailing scrape that was still legal until the front-foot law was introduced in 1963. More than 30 per cent of his first-class dismissals were bowled or lbw, the signature of a bowler who attacked the stumps rather than nibbled outside off.
His breakthrough came in 1958 with 48 wickets at 26.62, followed by 61 the next summer, which included the burst that defined his reputation: at Folkestone against Nottinghamshire, returning from a six-week heel injury, he took four wickets in five balls and nine in the match. In 1962 he topped the Kent bowling averages with 55 wickets at 22.07. The peak arrived in 1965, when he took 116 wickets for Kent at 19.04 — 119 in all first-class cricket that summer — the only time he passed 100 in a season, and a workload that puts him among the last generation of county seamers asked to bowl 900 overs a year.
Brown was capped by Kent in 1961, receiving cap number 135, and was a dangerous lower-order hitter, scoring three fifties with a best of 81. His career-best figures were 8-47, with 7-45 against Nottinghamshire and 7-65 against Essex among his other heaviest returns. The two Test caps came because Fred Trueman, Brian Statham and most of England’s first-choice attack made themselves unavailable for the subcontinent tour. On flat, slow pitches offering nothing to a bowler whose threat was pace and bounce, he finished with three wickets at 50 and was never selected again.
The 1970 side that changed Kent
Brown’s final season was the one that mattered most. At the end of June 1970, after seven matches, Kent were bottom of the Championship table. Colin Cowdrey, back from an Achilles operation, had made 152 runs in his first 13 innings. What followed — with Mike Denness standing in as captain while Cowdrey played for England, and hitting 167 not out at Harlow as Essex were beaten by an innings and 24 runs — turned a last-placed side into champions for the first time since 1913, in the club’s centenary year.
Brown did not play in the title-sealing match against Surrey, but he is in the official squad photograph and he was part of the bowling group that got Kent there. That 1970 title was the start of the most decorated decade in the county’s history, taking in further Championship success and a run of one-day trophies. Brown, then 34 and sharing the new ball with David Sayer and Norman Graham, retired at the end of it and took a joint benefit with Sayer in 1971.
Two sports, one working life
The football career ran in parallel, in the winters, when county cricketers needed a second income. Arsenal and Gillingham both showed interest; he had a trial at Wolverhampton Wanderers that went nowhere. Instead he joined Gravesend and Northfleet in 1957, was converted from centre-half to centre-forward, and scored 22 goals in 43 matches across four seasons. He went on to play for Margate, where he scored 28 in 35 appearances, and for Canterbury City, Whitstable Town and Deal Town, finishing as Deal’s top scorer in 1963-64 and again in 1969-70. His total across all levels was 106 goals.
- First-class: 251 matches, 743 wickets at 24.66, best 8-47
- Kent: 237 matches, 707 wickets (17th on the club’s all-time list)
- Tests: 2 matches, 3 wickets at 50.00, best 3-27
- Best season: 116 Kent wickets at 19.04 in 1965
- Football: 106 goals in Kent non-league cricket’s off-season
After cricket he worked as a salesman for Imperial Paper Mills, as a manager in the cement industry with APCM, and for the Post Office. He assessed himself without flattery: “I suppose I’ll be looked back on as an average player. I did have spells where I was as good as anybody but, then again, I had other spells really good players simply don’t have.” The record — 743 wickets, a Championship medal, two England caps and a century of non-league goals — argues otherwise.
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**Word count:** 752 (article body text).
Facts verified across six sources. Two discrepancies worth flagging for your sub-editor:
– **1965 wickets:** Kent CCC’s obituary says 116 at 19.04; Wikipedia says 119 at 19.04. I’ve used 116 for Kent and noted 119 in all first-class cricket.
– **Football goals:** Kent CCC gives 106 “across all levels”; Kent Sports News attributes 106 to Gravesend & Northfleet alone, which contradicts its own 22-in-43 figure. I’ve used the broader reading.
– One KentOnline interview dates the MCC tour to 1966; Kent CCC, Wikipedia and the club profile all confirm 1961-62, which is what I used.
Sources: [Kent Cricket obituary](https://www.kentcricket.co.uk/news/alan-brown-1935-2026/), [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Brown_(cricketer,_born_1935)), [Yahoo Sports/BBC](https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/kent-championship-winning-bowler-brown-140504111.html), [Kent Sports News](https://www.kentsportsnews.com/kent-announce-passing-of-alan-brown-16-10-2026/), [KentOnline interview](https://www.kentonline.co.uk/gravesend/sport/brown-s-a-good-sport-with-great-stories-331532/), [Kent Cricket profile](https://www.kentcricket.co.uk/profile/alan-brown/), [CricketWeb on Kent 1970](https://www.cricketweb.net/from-the-bottom-to-the-top/).
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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