 When the coal mines were nationalised Brown lost his job and became the captain and assistant-secretary of Northamptonshire County Cricket Club in 1949.From being in seventeenth and last place in the County Championship in 1948 (and failing to win a county match between 1934 and 1939) Brown led Northants to sixth place in 1949.He was rotated in the England captaincy in 1949-50 with George Mann and Norman Yardley without success.