An iconic Bermuda football shirt once worn by Lance Brown made its way back to the island last week, thanks to an act of generosity from his former college team-mate.

Brown, who died of a heart attack in 1994 at the young age of 36, went to Plymouth State University in New Hampshire for only six months in 1980 and became good friends with Jeff Rocke, to whom he gave his jersey before returning to Bermuda.

Roll on nearly 45 years and Rocke visited the island for the first time with his son, Tyler, to repatriate the jersey with stories of Brown aplenty as the shirt was handed over to Mark Wade, the Bermuda Football Association president and BFA general secretary David Sabir at the Clyde Best Centre of Excellence.

The stroll down memory lane brought plenty of laughs and high emotion as Rocke recalled the impact Brown had made on him.

“The first thing I think about when I think of Lance was just how funny he was,” Rocke said.

“He was just hilarious. I have vivid memories of him and his best buddy on campus, Steve Clarke, from England, coming into my dorm room and I had this contraption that you could cook hot dogs on. He’d always say, ‘I won’t say no’ when I asked if he wanted one.

“Lance was playing at such a high level compared with a lot of us and just seeing team-mates and opponents trying to get the ball away from him was quite something. He would be out there hooting and hollering as he was moving the ball around and nutmegging people.

“He would be making all these noises and getting everybody laughing, and whether it was practice or a real game he would still do it. He was such a funny, comic guy.”

Brown was at Plymouth State for only a short time but formed such a close bond with his team-mates that he gave Rocke his national team jersey after he had made the decision to leave.

“When Lance decided to leave, it was in secrecy as he knew the coach who recruited him to Plymouth State wouldn’t want him to leave,” Rocke said.

“Lance had had enough weather-wise ... he was freezing, and in January he just wanted to go home. We took him to little Laconia Airport at about 3am, and he hopped on a plane at around 6am and he was gone.

“About a week before he left, he came to the house a couple of times and he told us how much he had enjoyed his time playing with us and appreciated everything that we did for him and he gave me the jersey. I immediately put it in plastic, and it’s been in there for 45 years.”

Rocke began trying to reconnect with Brown when the internet took off in the late 1990s, but found very little information on his college friend. He eventually tracked down Brown’s son and was shocked to find that his team-mate had passed at such a young age.

“It was really sad to find out that he had passed,” Rocke said.

“I really didn’t ask his son too much on the details, but I was curious about what happened and I just couldn’t believe that somebody that fit with legs as big as he had and as athletic and fun-spirited as he was could have that happen to him. It’s mind-boggling when you think of how fit he was.

“When the internet became more and more popular, and people really started to use it, I searched for old team-mates and what they were up to. I started looking up Lance and I wanted to get in touch with him, but I could never find anything on him.

“I’d look off and on for a couple of years and then wait a few years and look again. But in 2022 I went through Facebook and found his son. He messaged me back, was very polite and I asked if he would like the jersey, but he said he was only 2 when his father passed away and didn’t know him that well, so he said I’d just as soon not — and that was of course OK.

“But I kept searching and found the BFA Legends website, and I just about fell off my office chair when I saw the write-up on Lance. I got in touch with David [Sabir] and the ball started rolling about giving the jersey back.

“If it wasn’t for my son, I wouldn’t have come over, but he took the ball in his hands and said, ‘Why don’t we go over and take it to them, rather than FedEx it?’ That turned out to be a much better idea.”

Under the badge on Brown’s jersey is the Latin phrase Quo Fata Ferunt, which translates “Whither the fates lead us”, and that is what brought Rocke and his son to the BFA office, where they met Sabir, a former team-mate of Brown at Somerset Trojans, and Wade, a former opponent.

Sabir was close to tears when recalling his shock at Brown’s passing and recalled his playing days at Silver City before Lance became the first Bermudian to move for money when he was signed by hometown club Somerset Eagles for $2,500 in 1985.

“It’s emotional to see this shirt, and I’m trying to keep it bottled up,” Sabir said.

“It’s amazing that these guys cared so much about one of my team-mates. I played with him in Somerset and what they described as joking I identify with; Lance would take the mickey out of anyone.

“Apart from being an amazing player, that is what I remember most about Lance. I feel so privileged as Lance was an amazing left-sided player for Somerset Trojans when I came into the team.

“Lance broke me in and protected me on the field, as I was a scrawny little guy. He had legs like tree trunks, but the heart of a lion. He was fit, for a short guy he was fast, and he was fearless.

“Lance was the first player a club had to pay a fee for. It was $2,500. He started the player-movement revolution. No club wanted to lose him and others wanted to have him.

“This brings back all the memories of when he passed and you wonder how it is possible that it was that long ago and just how that could happen to somebody so fit and fearless.”

While Sabir had the privilege to play alongside Brown, Wade had the pain of playing against him, and was on the receiving end of a tough tackle or two in the old Reserve Division.

“My introduction to Lance wasn’t all this jokey, nice stuff,” Wade said.

“As a young player I was playing in the Reserve Division and he was on his way out of the game. We were playing in a match, and to get the opportunity to play against players who had played for the national team was a memorable experience.

“I was on the receiving end of one of Lance’s tackles and I thought he was going to kill me after the game. But it speaks volumes to his character that he came to me and spoke to me about the game, about my game, and he liked the fact I wasn’t intimidated.

“He was able to give me just five minutes of a chat to a young player, so to now have his national team jersey returned to Bermuda is touching.”

For the time being the shirt will be put in a frame and hung in Wade’s office, but there has long been talk of a BFA Hall of Fame and the president is hopeful this may help owners of other historical items to come forward.

“It’s a dream of mine to be able to collect these types of things and display them,” Wade said.

“The Legends scholarship feeds right into that, so collecting of historical data and artefacts and the Hall of Fame is only a matter of time.

“This may be the catalyst for others and if others have jerseys, whistles or boots, please get in touch.

“We are on the pathway to doing things like that. We took the 70-year-old FA Cup trophy to Cabinet and we allow the FA Cup champions to touch it and hold it, but they cannot take it.

“Only an FA Cup champion can touch it with their bare hands, so even I wear gloves when I handle it. We are respectful of our history and keen to maintain it as much as possible.”