Keith Curle

Born in Bristol, Curle began his career at hometown club Bristol Rovers, for whom he made a goalscoring debut on 29 August 1981 in the (old) Third Division against Chester. He left two seasons later to join Torquay United for £5,000 but remained at Plainmoor only for four months before returning to his native city, this time with Bristol City. The Robins won promotion from the fourth tier at the end of the 1983–84 season soon after Curle's arrival. He remained with the club for three full seasons in the third flight, amassing 128 appearances in total. He finally left Ashton Gate to join Reading for £150,000 in October 1987. After a year at Reading – during which Reading won the Simod Cup and were relegated from the Second Division – he made a £500,000 move to Division One and FA Cup holders Wimbledon. He spent two and a half years battling with the Crazy Gang before Manchester City paid a club record £2.5million for him in August 1991. This was the joint highest fee paid for a defender by a British club at the time, and one of the highest paid for a player of any position. His first season at Maine Road saw a 5th place league finish and earned him a call-up to the England squad, debuting on 29 April 1992 as a substitute in a 2–2 friendly draw against the CIS in Moscow. After starting in a further warm-up game (a 1–0 win over Hungary), he was selected for the squad for Euro '92. Here, he covered at right-back in their opening goalless group game against Denmark, but played no…

Mansfield Town

Curle began his management career on 3 December 2002 after being appointed as player-manager of Mansfield Town, after the dismissal of Stuart Watkiss. He took over with the team struggling in the relegation zone and could not prevent the drop to the fourth tier, but took them to the play-off final in his first full season in charge, where they lost on penalties to Huddersfield Town. In December 2004, he was controversially fired over claims that he had intimidated a member of the youth team. However, in August 2006, Curle won a case for wrongful dismissal against the club and was awarded undisclosed damages. The judge in the case cleared Curle of any wrongdoing, and described Mansfield's disciplinary process as a "sham".

Chester City

Despite the outcome of his hearing not yet being clear, he was appointed as manager of Chester City in May 2005 and began brightly with the club challenging for promotion from League Two and eliminating Nottingham Forest from the FA Cup. However, a disastrous losing run of 11 games in 12 cost Curle his job in February 2006 after just nine months in charge.

Torquay United

On 8 February 2007, he was appointed head coach (effectively manager under Director of Football Colin Lee, his former manager at Wolves) at Torquay United, where he had played earlier in his career. He was on a short-term contract that ended in the summer of 2007. After failing to save Torquay from relegation, Curle's contract was not…

Player

Bristol City

Associate Members' Cup: 1985–86; runner-up: 1986–87 Reading

Full Members' Cup: 1987–88

Manager

Northampton Town

EFL League Two play-offs: 2020

Individual

As a player

Wolverhampton Wanderers Player of the Year: 1997–98 As a manager

EFL League Two Manager of the Month: October 2016