Jamie Cureton (born 28 August, 1975, in Bristol) is a striker who plays for Norwich City in the English League One.

[edit] Career

[edit] Early years

Cureton began his professional career with Norwich City before moving on to Bristol Rovers. An England youth international, big things were expected of Cureton, but he never quite lived up to the potential. However he became a cult figure among the Norwich faithful by bleaching his hair in yellow and green colours in a derby game against Ipswich in 1996 and subsequently scoring in the same fixture. He was sold by Mike Walker to Bristol Rovers in 1996.

[edit] Bristol Rovers

Cureton enjoyed a prolific spell at his hometown club. This was particularly the case during the 1999–2000 season where he struck up a partnership with Jason Roberts that almost took the club to promotion. After the club dipped out of the play-off places on the final day of the season he decided his future lay with pastures new, and headed to Reading.

[edit] Reading

The best spell of football in his career since leaving Norwich came with Reading, whom he joined in 2000. He played at Reading for three years. While at the club, the RFC supporters' trust had a newly discovered star in the "Perseus" constellation named after him.

[edit] South Korea

Cureton then made a mid-2003 switch to K-League side Busan I'cons (now Busan I'Park). He failed to settle in the Far East however, and after being released from his contract, he returned to England and joined QPR.^[1] After an unsettled season at Loftus Road, he joined Swindon Town in June 2005. He failed to make his mark in his first spell at the club and subsequently joined Colchester United on loan.^[2]

[edit] Swindon Town

He then briefly returned to Swindon Town as they failed to avoid relegation to League Two. After Swindon's relegation, Cureton activated a clause in his contract that allowed him to leave Swindon on a free transfer, and rejoined Colchester on a permanent basis.^[3]

[edit] Colchester United

Cureton had a period of good goal-scoring form following his transfer, with the highlight being a hat-trick against Derby County on 26 August 2006. He also scored a hat-trick in the 3–0 away win against Southend United. His 23 goals in the 2006–07 season gave him the Championship Golden Boot as the league's top scorer, and made him the first Colchester United striker since Tony Adcock to score 20 league goals in a season; the first for 22 years.

On 5 June, 2007, Cureton handed in a transfer request to Colchester United, citing Colchester's ambitions differing from his own, underlined when the club failed to re-sign several key players. This inevitably fueled speculation that Cureton may return to Norwich City, the club where he began his career. Cureton himself stated that he would like to return to the club.

Colchester initially rejected the transfer request, saying that Cureton was an important part of the club's future and that they wanted to keep him.^[4], though Norwich City manager Peter Grant confirmed that he would like to sign Cureton.^[5] Cureton moved to Norwich City for £825,000 on 29 June, 2007.^[6] He was signed as a replacement for Robert Earnshaw, Norwich's top scorer of the 2006–07 season, who left for Derby County in a £3.5m deal the same day.

[edit] Norwich City

He scored his first goals for Norwich since re-signing against King's Lynn at The Walks. This was followed up by another goal on Norwich's pre season tour of Holland against AGOVV Apeldoorn. He then scored two in the League Cup against Barnet and two on his league debut for Norwich against Southampton. One of his more crucial goals came during the Canaries' 1–0 win at Scunthorpe United, a victory that lifted Norwich clear of the relegation places ahead of the Christmas and New Year fixtures. On 22 March, 2008, Cureton scored his first ever hat-trick for Norwich against former club Colchester United.^[7]

On 27 November, 2008, Cureton joined Barnsley on a 3 month loan deal,^[8] but on 14 January, 2009, he was recalled to Norwich City after Glenn Roeder's termination as manager. When Norwich played Barnsley on the following weekend, the Canaries were 4–0 victors with Cureton scoring one. Cureton played his 100th game for Norwich City against Coventry but put in a bad performance and was dropped for the rest of the season. For the 2009–10 season, Cureton is one of several strikers in the Norwich squad, which includes Cody McDonald, Grant Holt, Goran Marić and Chris Martin. Cureton started Lambert's first three games, only to get dropped to the bench for the next two games being a unused sub for both. Cureton scored his first two goals of the season, against Leyton Orient and Bristol Rovers, both in which he came on as a late sub.

[edit] Career statistics

^[9]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Jamie Cureton profile at canaries.co.uk
• Jamie Cureton career stats at Soccerbase
• Career information at ex-canaries.co.uk
• K-League Player Record (Korean)