I was a West Ham wonderkid who thought their tactics 'wasted energy' - now I'm playing with YouTubers at 28
Once an England international and a rising West Ham star - now playing with YouTubers after spells in five different countries.
The history of the Premier League is littered with young prospects who didn’t quite make the grade – but few who would go on to play for 13 teams in five countries before they turned 28, and who now play alongside YouTubers in a six-a-side event watched by hundreds of thousands of viewers.
That, however, is the path which Jordan Antonio Brown’s career has taken after he came through the ranks at Arsenal and West Ham United. He’s played in Germany, Czechia, Iceland and Canada, won titles with a team that’s less than a year old, and is now showing the top flight what it might have missed out on in a very different sort of arena.
What happened to West Ham prospect Jordan Antonio Brown?
A diminutive striker who started his career at Arsenal before moving to West Ham’s academy when he was 17, Brown made his debut as a Hammer in a Europa League qualifying match in 2015 under Slaven Bilić – but it would prove to be his first and only appearance for a club at which he had once been touted as a serious prospect for the future.
It wasn’t just his club that saw him having a bright future. Brown played for England at Under-16 and Under-17 level, scoring three times at the latter level in seven appearances. Unfortunately, he never quite kicked on as many had hoped.
Injury played a part, as it so often does in such cases, and a badly-timed knee meniscus injury sustained at a crucial point in his development didn’t help matters – but a brief and uninspiring loan spell with non-league Chelmsford City didn’t help to raise his stock, either. He was released in 2016, still just 19 years of age, having fallen short of the bar set by the Premier League.
Brown wasn’t deterred, however, and started off on nearly a decade of globe-trotting, starting with two years at Bundesliga side Hannover 96, for whom he made 40 reserve appearances without making the first team.
READ MORE: The Wonderkid Power Rankings - the Top 10 best young players in the Premier League right now
While he didn’t quite make it in the German top flight either, Brown had some interesting observations about his time there and the differences in coaching styles that he experienced.
““The tactical ideas they have are different. In England if you are very good then they let you just be good but in Germany they want to mould you,” he told Sky Sports. “The attitude in Germany is that you can be the best player in the world on the ball but if you are not doing what they want off the ball then you simply won’t play.
“There are training sessions without the ball where they explain that if the ball goes here then you are expected to go there. In England, I never did that. You just do what you do and it’s almost random.
“When I was playing up front for West Ham, I was leading the line and pressing but I was basically just pressing the person nearest to me. If someone is there you close them. It was only when I went to Germany that I realised that maybe wasn’t the cleverest idea. You are wasting energy if you are not pressing as a team.”
Brown would take those lessons on to Czechia, where he played for Znojmo, then to Canada, where he starred for newly-formed Cavalry FC, scoring crucial goals as they won the spring and fall championships in the Canadian Premier League just a year after the club was founded in 2018.
Further stints in Canada followed with Electric City FC and Pacific FC, there was another spell in Germany with VfR Aalen, and 13 appearances for Fylkir in Iceland – all before he returned to England to play non-league football with Northwood, Egham Town and Burnham, where he plies his trade now. He is still just 28 years of age, but is now combining his non-league career with something quite different.
How the Baller League gave Brown a new opportunity
Perhaps the most unexpected opportunity which came Brown’s way, however, wasn’t in a foreign country but in London – with the UK edition of the Baller League , the streamer-led six-a-side competition which pits a combination of former pros, one-time academy prospects and content creators against one another.
Brown played in the first edition for Trebol FC, who were meant to be managed by legendary Portuguese winger Luis Figo – although, in the end, the former Real Madrid and Barcelona star never took part. Now renamed Mystery Team with their manager for the second season, which starts this autumn, as yet unveiled, Brown is once again on the roster.
When asked what he had enjoyed most about his time on the Baller League, and what prompted him to come back, Brown simply said that it was about “enjoying football.”
“I play football to enjoy,” he added in an interview with Ali Chin’s YouTube channel. “I don't play football to have a job or I [could] still be playing football abroad if I wanted to. Obviously I don't because of my family and I wanted to settle over here. But yeah, for me like it was always like I wanted to play football to enjoy it again.”
Brown combines his Baller League career with weekend football with Burnham – a far cry, perhaps, from West Ham or England’s age group teams and a very different environment from the many that he experienced overseas, but still one which provides money and opportunities that few other prospects who missed out on a career at the top level receive.