All Stars unite to champion a true legend

A TREBLE with Yeading, a famous FA Cup third round clash against Newcastle United and a Southern Premier play off win at Maidenhead United before playing a key part in Staines Town taking Millwall to a cup replay — Darty Brown loved every minute of his Non-League career

- MATT BADCOCK

Next Sunday, teammates from the past will come together for the former midfielder to raise money in his fight against a rare form of cancer, Cardiac Sarcoma.

Maidenhead’s York Road home will host an All Star team from that promotion-winning side versus Darty’s All Stars, made up of players he played alongside for Yeading and Staines as well as friends.

“It will be lovely to see them all running about, sweating, thinking they can still play,” Brown laughs to The NLP. “We’ll see. Lots of them still think they’re young so they may have a shock.”

Such is its rarity, there is limited research into the terminal and aggressive cancer. Money raised will go towards support for medical bills in specialised treatment centres and on-going care for the 46-year-old, who was diagnosed on March 7 last year.

“A lot of the symptoms other people have had with it, my body is kind of defying it at the moment,” Brown says, referring to the benefits of having played Non-League football for so many years.

It was a career that started with mates at Willesden Constantine before eventually taking up the offer to play for Yeading reserves.

“I was playing with friends at Willesden Constantine,” Brown says. “Graham, who ran the reserves at Yeading, knew about me and he would come down to basically say, ‘Come and play for some money. You’re good enough’.

“I was playing with my friends, I enjoyed it. So I didn’t at first. Eventually I went and played a couple of reserve games before I went into the first team. That’s when Jon Turner was the manager.

“I played until the end of the season but I had some family issues so I stopped playing for a year-and-a-half.