JAMIE WELCOMES NEW GENERATION
JAMIE Cureton is under strict instructions to keep his boots locked away following Enfield FC’s promotion from the Essex Senior League.
“The chairman has pretty much retired me!” laughs the former Reading and Bristol Rovers striker, who remains on the club’s books as player-manager at the grand old age of 47.
“He made it very clear last summer that he thinks I’m more use managing the team and I can’t really argue – it’s the first year I’ve hardly played and we won the league.
“To be fair, the forwards were doing so well that I had no reason to play myself. As much as I want to play, the group is more important and everything was working so well.
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s tough. I still feel like I could do a job. And my son Roma, who is seven, always wants to see me on the pitch.
“He watched me play last season and I scored a hat-trick so every week it’s ‘Why don’t you play?’.
“I feel a bit bad for him because my two grown-up sons saw me play in my prime, so maybe I’ll just send him to the owner and play the sympathy card!”
Cureton’s prime was prolific indeed, featuring 20-goal seasons at every level of the EFL and the Championship Golden Boot with Colchester in 2006-07.
He subsequently featured in Non-League for the likes of Farnborough, Eastleigh and Bishop’s Stortford before joining Enfield FC as player-manager in 2020 and has now clocked up 376 goals in 1,066 appearances.
Domestic bliss
But if this is to be the end of Cureton’s remarkable 29-year playing career, the family legend could yet live on.
“Roma’s a decent player,” explains Cureton. “He plays Sunday football, he’s training at Colchester. He’s a goalscorer as well – he got 58 goals this season and he’s definitely got something about him. I’m really enjoying watching him.
“I get to take him training on a Saturday morning, watch him play on a Sunday. I spend a lot of time being a dad and watching football, which is something I didn’t do with my oldest two because I was always playing and travelling around. I love it.”
Despite this season’s success and high-profile contacts throughout the game, that domestic bliss explains why Cureton has no intention of testing his managerial powers in the professional ranks.
Ambitious Enfield owner Stephen Whittington has grand plans to build a new stadium complex, ending more than a decade of ground-sharing at various locations throughout Essex.
“I’m staying with this lot now, I’m not going anywhere else,” says Cureton. “It’s a club that’s on the up, a really exciting project. It’s not just the stadium – the owner wants to build an academy and training facility, with everything under one roof.
“Everyone always says to me ‘Don’t you fancy moving up?’ and stuff like that. But I’m in a really good place.
“I’m enjoying the work. I enjoy managing in NonLeague. I work for a very good boss. I’ve spoken to a lot of people in football and they all say that if you get the right people above you then you’ve cracked it.
“I’ve got friends managing in the professional game and they can’t afford to lose a few games or they’re gone. There’s no plan. It’s just keep winning or else. To uproot your family and move somewhere new, then suddenly it’s all gone – that’s not for me. “I had a lot of upheaval and travelling around as a player. Family always came second. That’s not a life I want anymore.
“At Enfield, the owner’s got a plan and he sees me leading it for years to come. I’m more than content here.” Whittington’s backing gave Enfield – by Cureton’s own admission – the biggest budget in the Essex Senior League.
But where will they rank in Isthmian North?
“I’m not sure,” he says. “There’s a lot of big teams who can offer players a lot of money. We’ve spoken to a lot of players already and when they tell you what they’ve been offered elsewhere you think ‘Okay, maybe not’. It gives you a pretty good gauge of where you are.
“But we’re in good shape to compete. The season just gone, we kept a lot of the players from the year before. That was our first year of having a go and we finished fifth so we knew we didn’t need much.
“We tried to get players from above and we were fortunate in that we got a lot of lads who couldn’t play higher due to jobs.
No pressure
“That means we’ve got a lot of players who are comfortable at this level so it’s not like we have to rip it up and start again.
“It’s more about doing the same thing again - finding the best players at Step 4 and trying to sell the project to a few at Step 3. Everyone knows we’ve got a bit of money, but it’s not about buying the league every single season and bringing tons of players in. It’s about keeping a core group and adding a bit of quality.”
Thirteen of the title-winning squad have been retained for the coming season. Cureton says another five or six will be required to compete at the sharp end, but that nobody is under pressure to win promotion.
“If I get the right bodies in, I think we’ll be in and around it,” he says. “But until we get going, I won’t really know. As long as we feel we can compete in every game, that’s the most important thing.
“At the end of the day, promotion out of the Essex Senior League was the big thing for us. Now that’s done, it’s not a case of ‘You need to go straight up again’. It’s about building and growing – but that doesn’t mean we won’t give it our best shot.”