‘I’ve scored in all top nine leagues – and
Jamie Cureton tells Jim White why he is still addicted to goals, 25 years after his debut
When Jamie Cureton scored for Enfield on Oct 24, he established the most unlikely record: the nimble, fleet-heeled striker became the first to score in the top nine levels of English football, from the Premier League to the Essex Senior League. And, despite being aged 44, and despite the fact the crowd numbers could have been counted on a couple of hands, he celebrated the strike with the same gusto he did when he once scored a hat-trick at Highbury.
“I loved it,” he admits. “Scoring still gives me the same buzz, I literally cannot get enough of it. It is nice when there’s a big crowd but doing it in front of 60,000 or 60, the feeling inside you is the same as ever. Perhaps even more so, because at my age each goal you score is closer to being your last.”
That the record came about at all is a measure of Cureton’s unquenchable appetite for finding the net. He is player-manager of Bishop’s Stortford, in the Isthmian League Premier Division, which is part of the eighth tier of the English football pyramid. From this season, they have welcomed, as tenants at their Woodside Park ground, Enfield, who play in the level below. One day Cureton was talking to the Enfield manager, who mentioned that if he fancied a game he could have one at any time.
“Initially, I didn’t do it to get the record, because, if I’m honest, I wasn’t absolutely sure what level they were. It just so happened I hadn’t played for a couple of weeks, needed a run out and the manager said they had a game on Wednesday evening. I was free so I came on for 10 minutes. It was after that I realised they were in the ninth tier, so yeah, when he said I could start the following
Wednesday, I definitely went in hungry. I scored and they won, so I felt I’d contributed, it wasn’t just about me.”
What is astonishing about Cureton’s record, however, is that it ever came about at all. Former top-flight players tend not to drift down deep into the subterranean strata of the non-league game. After starring for Norwich - where he made his debut in 1994 as a 19-year-old - Bristol Rovers, Reading and Dagenham & Redbridge across a 23-year professional career, it might have been thought when his last contract came to an end that he had earned the right to put his feet up on a Saturday afternoon. But he says the need to carry on was significant: he was still in the grip of a football addiction.
“Even though I’d played till I was 41, I think I’d have struggled mentally if I’d just have given up when I stopped being a pro,” he says as he sits in the bar at Bishop’s Stortford’s ground. “I see a lot of players who retire and struggle. And I’m happy to admit I think I would have done. So this is a slow weaning off.” And he insists the apparent culture shock in dropping down the leagues has caused him little concern: after all, the rules of the game are the same at every level.
“Pro friends ask me all the time: how can you turn up with cold showers, a crap pitch, crap team-mates? I don’t look at it like that. I love football and still get the same highs and lows whatever the level. I love winning, love scoring and hate losing. The surroundings don’t make a difference. Yeah, when you’re a pro you turn up with a wash bag and that’s it. Everything’s there for you, everything’s done for you, you’ve just got to perform. Sure, as you drop down, you may have to do more, wash your own kit, sort your own transport, bring your own towel. But so what? The end game is enjoyment. It still brings me great joy, so why not carry on?”
Such has been his longevity that in April he reached a notable landmark: he became only the 29th footballer to have played 1,000 senior matches. It is some list he joined, including Roberto Carlos,