As he nears his fiftieth birthday, Jamie Cureton shouldn’t be in any hurry to name it a day after a taking part in profession spanning 22 golf equipment, three promotions and three relegations.
“I’ve simply registered myself as a participant for the 2025-26 season and wish to make no less than one look after my birthday,” says Cambridge Metropolis’s player-manager as he prepares his crew for Saturday’s FA Cup further preliminary spherical tie at Kirkley & Pakefield.
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Cureton was 19 when he made his Premier League debut for in November 1994.
Again then, Oldham Athletic and Swindon City had simply been relegated from the highest flight, Neville Southall was Everton’s goalkeeper and Blackburn Rovers had been on their option to being topped champions of England.
Cureton will make it a outstanding 32 successive seasons as a participant throughout 9 tiers of English soccer, from the Premier League to the Essex Senior League, ought to he prove for Cambridge Metropolis this marketing campaign.
The listing of golf equipment he has represented is limitless.
Norwich, Bournemouth (mortgage), Bristol Rovers, Studying, Busan I’Cons (South Korea), QPR, Swindon City, Colchester, Barnsley (mortgage), Shrewsbury (mortgage), Exeter, Leyton Orient.
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There’s extra.
Cheltenham, Dagenham & Redbridge, Farnborough, Eastleigh, St Albans Metropolis, Bishop’s Stortford, Enfield, Hornchurch, Maldon & Tiptree and now Cambridge Metropolis, the place he’s about to start out his second season in cost.
“Soccer is all I’ve ever recognized,” Bristol-born Cureton tells BBC Sport.
“I grew up in an space the place bother was round. Perhaps I might have fallen into the incorrect kind of crowd. Fortunately, I had soccer.
“Something outdoors soccer is a bit alien to me. I might be fairly misplaced with out it. Being concerned within the sport retains me completely satisfied and sane.”
Cureton scored 24 occasions in 108 video games throughout two spells for Norwich Metropolis [Getty Images]
Teaching Saka & becoming a member of Xavi within the 1,000 membership
Cureton can’t keep in mind precisely what number of appearances he has revamped the previous 31 years. “I misplaced depend once I reached 1,000,” he provides.
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Six years have handed since that extraordinary milestone which positioned him in an elite group of gamers, alongside Barcelona legend Xavi and Actual Madrid legend Raul, who’ve additionally achieved this feat.
Cureton has clocked up 1,075 video games and is twenty fifth on the listing of male footballers with 1,000 or extra official appearances.
A type of video games concerned a can of hairspray from a joke store, when the then-20-year-old for Norwich’s sport with fierce rivals Ipswich in 1996.
His most up-to-date aggressive look was on 26 April, when the 49-year-old got here on as a 68th-minute substitute in Cambridge Metropolis’s 1-0 win away to Basildon City in entrance of 123 followers within the eighth-tier Isthmian League North Division.
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Cureton was 24 years older than team-mate Junior Mubiayi, who scored Metropolis’s winner.
“When it comes to targets, in my head and from what individuals have informed me, I am both 4 or six away from 400,” he says. “I might like to complete on 400 or above.”
Since his final skilled look aged 41, Cureton has moved into administration in non-league, with player-manager roles at Bishop’s Stortford, Enfield and now Cambridge Metropolis.
“It wasn’t one thing I had in my thoughts,” provides Cureton, who performed below the likes of Martin O’Neill, Ian Holloway, Alan Pardew and the earlier than dropping into non-league.
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“I stumbled into administration. I acquired provided a task at Bishop’s Stortford and it simply snowballed. I completely take pleasure in it.”
Cureton additionally loved a two-year stint as an academy coach at Arsenal between 2017 and 2019, the place gamers below his watch included a 16-year-old Bukayo Saka.
“It is no shock to see him doing what he is doing to be sincere,” he says of Saka, who has 44 England caps on the age of 23.
“He is a really good man, humble, no airs and graces about him. He simply got here in and labored onerous. A intelligent boy as nicely, he was good at college.
“Working for a membership like Arsenal was unbelievable. I realized a lot and it was an exquisite alternative for me.”
Cureton, aged 26, celebrates Studying’s promotion to the First Division below Alan Pardew in 2001-02 [Rex Features]
‘I am older than most of their dads!’
Cureton turns 50 on 28 August, two days earlier than his crew’s residence sport with Wroxham.
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Will he reward himself an look in that sport and obtain his goal of taking part in at 50?
“I will not ever put myself above gamers who I really feel want the chance and must be taking part in,” says Cureton, who scored 4 occasions in 17 Premier League appearances in his first season at Norwich in 1994-95.
“I will not decide myself over them. I’ve registered for this season in case I am wanted, in case I must relaxation gamers.
“In direction of the tip of final season we would misplaced a couple of gamers and had a couple of accidents, and there was a possibility the place I felt I might play.”
Cambridge Metropolis, based in 1908, completed eleventh in 2024-25 and Cureton is concentrating on a top-five end and a play-off place in his second season in cost.
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These are thrilling occasions for the Lilywhites, who moved to a model new 3,000-capacity floor about seven miles south of Cambridge final November.
A crowd of 1,459 watched them play Tilbury of their first aggressive sport on the FWD-IP Group Stadium, after 10 years of ground-sharing.
Earlier this month, 2,640 turned out on the venue to observe a
“We have got a younger squad and I am older than most of their dads!” provides Cureton.
“If I may help any of them with their sport, and even with their life, then I feel I’m doing my job.”
Cambridge Metropolis’s sport at Lowestoft-based Kirkley & Pakefield is one among 222 FA Cup further preliminary spherical ties scheduled for this weekend, 11 weeks after within the last at Wembley.
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The Lilywhites reached the second spherical in 2004, their finest run within the competitors, when Cureton was taking part in within the Championship for QPR.
Cureton helped Bristol Rovers attain the last-16 in 1998-99 and would, if circumstances permit, wish to make one last FA Cup look earlier than he hangs up his boots for good.
“I by no means thought I might nonetheless be taking part in on the verge of fifty,” he says. “I am very grateful. The drive to maintain on taking part in is what has pushed me thus far.
“Soccer has been good to me and hopefully I can keep within the sport for an additional 10 or 15 years as a supervisor or a coach, after which go and play some golf or go fishing.”
A crowd of two,640 watched the pre-season pleasant towards Cambridge United at Cambridge Metropolis’s new 3,000-capacity floor [Ali Dixon]