David “Davey” Brown

One of the leading stars of the original American Soccer League, often ranked second only to Archie Stark among that league’s top forwards. The diminutive Brown, an unusual 5-foot-3 center forward, also played several games for the U.S. national team, but missed the 1930 World Cup due to an injury.

Brown, who spent his entire life in the Kearny, N.J., area, played for several different northern New Jersey teams, Ford AC, West Hudson, Paterson and Erie, before beginning his ASL career near home in 1921 with the Harrison club. Most of his ASL career was spent with the New York Giants, whom he joined in 1924 and played with for six ASL seasons. Brown led the ASL in scoring in the 1926-27 season, scoring 52 goals in 38 games, and finished his ASL career in 1931 with 189 goals. During that 1926-27 season, he pulled away from the goalscoring pack early, scoring 14 goals in four days in mid-October 1926. As a result of the seven goals that he scored against Philadelphia on Oct. 10, 1926, he still shares the record for goals in a single American first-division game with Giorgio Chinaglia of the New York Cosmos.

Despite his goalscoring feats, Brown was only a member of one major championship team during his career. That was the New York Giants team that won the ASL championship in 1931. Earlier, he had been a member of the West Hudson team that was runner up for the American Football Association Cup in 1917, the Paterson team that was runner up for the U.S. Open Cup in 1919 and the New York Giants team that was runner up for the Lewis Cup in 1926.

Brown’s national-team career was limited to three games, all of them against Canada, in 1925 and 1926, although he did score three goals in those games. Earlier, he had made overseas tours as a guest player with Bethlehem Steel in 1919 and St. Louis in 1920.

Inducted in 1951.