Ian Culverhouse
Encyclopedia
Ian Brett Culverhouse is an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 former professional footballer. He was a defender
Defender (association football)
Within the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to prevent the opposition from attacking....

 who played in the position of right-back. He is presently Assistant Manager of Norwich City.

Early career

Culverhouse began his career with Tottenham Hotspur
Tottenham Hotspur F.C.
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club , commonly referred to as Spurs, is an English Premier League football club based in Tottenham, north London. The club's home stadium is White Hart Lane....

. He found first team opportunities limited there and made just two league appearances for the club, though he did get a winner's medal in the UEFA Cup
UEFA Cup
The UEFA Europa League is an annual association football cup competition organised by UEFA since 1971 for eligible European football clubs. It is the second most prestigious European club football contest after the UEFA Champions League...

 as he was an unused substitute for Spurs in the 1984 final against Anderlecht
R.S.C. Anderlecht
Royal Sporting Club Anderlecht, usually known as Anderlecht or RSCA , is a Belgian professional football club based in Anderlecht in the Brussels Capital Region. Anderlecht plays in the Belgian Pro League and is the most successful Belgian football team in European competitions as well as in the...

.

Norwich City

In October 1985, Norwich City
Norwich City F.C.
Norwich City Football Club is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk. As of the 2011–12 season, Norwich City are again playing in the Premier League after a six-year absence, having finished as runner up in the Championship in 2010–11 and winning automatic promotion.The...

 manager Ken Brown
Ken Brown (footballer)
Kenneth 'Ken' Brown is an English former football player and manager. As player, he made more than 400 appearances in the Football League representing West Ham United, where he spent the majority of his career, and Torquay United, and was capped once for the England national team...

 paid £50,000 for Culverhouse, who would go on to spend ten years at Carrow Road
Carrow Road
Carrow Road is a football stadium in Norwich, England, and is the home of Norwich City Football Club. The stadium is located toward the easterly end of the city, not far from Norwich railway station and the River Wensum....

. At the time Culverhouse joined Norwich, they were in the Second Division and were favourites to win promotion to Division One. They duly did so, and Culverhouse ended his first season at Carrow Road with a division two Championship medal.

For a while during the 1986-87 season, Culverhouse found himself dropped from the first team in favour of the manager's son Kenny Brown. But Culverhouse regained his first team place and attained a level of performance and consistency that made him a fixture in the starting eleven for the best part of a decade. He was part of some of the greatest moments in the club's history - the 1988-89 season that saw Norwich come close to winning the League and FA Cup
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...

 double, the 1992-93 campaign when the Canaries finished third in the inaugural season of the FA Premier League
FA Premier League
The Premier League is an English professional league for association football clubs. At the top of the English football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with The Football League. The Premier...

 and the subsequent European campaign of 1993-94. Culverhouse acquitted himself well on the European stage, though he missed the away leg at Inter Milan's Giuseppe Miazza stadium - the match that saw City eliminated from the UEFA Cup - due to suspension, having picked up two yellow cards in the competition.

Culverhouse only ever scored two goals for Norwich in his 369 appearances - one in a 1988 Simod Cup match against Swindon Town
Swindon Town F.C.
Swindon Town Football Club are a team based in Swindon, Wiltshire. Currently in League Two, Swindon have been managed by Paolo Di Canio since 23 May 2011...

, the other in a 1994 league match against Everton
Everton F.C.
Everton Football Club are an English professional association football club from the city of Liverpool. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest level of English football...

. But his reliable performances in defence led him to be a very popular figure with the club's supporters. In 1991 he was voted Norwich City player of the year
Norwich City player of the year
The Norwich City player of the year award is voted for annually by Norwich City's supporters, in recognition of the best overall performance by an individual player throughout the football season...

 and in 2002 - in a poll amongst supporters to mark the club's centenary - he was voted the best right-back ever to play for the club and made the 'all-time City XI'.

Culverhouse is a member of the Norwich City F.C. Hall of Fame.

Post-Norwich career

A contract dispute led to Culverhouse falling out of favour and being dropped from the first team during the 1994-95 season. He was sold to Swindon Town
Swindon Town F.C.
Swindon Town Football Club are a team based in Swindon, Wiltshire. Currently in League Two, Swindon have been managed by Paolo Di Canio since 23 May 2011...

 for £150,000, to the displeasure of many Norwich supporters. He was released by the Robins in 1998 and played briefly for Kingstonian
Kingstonian F.C.
Kingstonian Football Club are an English, semi-professional football club that are playing in the Isthmian League Premier Division for the 2011–12 season. The club has played at Kingsmeadow in Kingston upon Thames since 1989, after leaving their traditional Richmond Road ground...

 and Brighton & Hove Albion
Brighton & Hove Albion F.C.
Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club are an English association football club based in the coastal city of Brighton & Hove, East Sussex. They currently play in the Football League Championship, the second tier of the English football league system....

. He began his coaching career while at Brighton where he coached the youth team. He has subsequently been youth team coach at Barnet
Barnet F.C.
Barnet Football Club is an English football team from High Barnet, London, England, currently playing in Football League Two. The ground is in the town of Barnet within the London Borough of Barnet....

, Leyton Orient
Leyton Orient F.C.
Leyton Orient F.C. are an English professional football club in East London. They currently play in Football League One and are known to their fans as the O's.Leyton Orient have spent one season in the top flight of English football, in 1962–63...

 and Wycombe Wanderers
Wycombe Wanderers F.C.
Wycombe Wanderers Football Club is an English professional football team from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, which has been promoted to Football League One after finishing third in Football League Two in the season 2010–11. The club's nicknames are "The Chairboys" and "The Blues", and they play...

.

Culverhouse was named Colchester United assistant manager under Paul Lambert
Paul Lambert
Paul Christopher Lambert is a Scottish football manager and former player who is the manager of Norwich City. He won numerous trophies as a player, winning the Scottish Cup with St...

. Culverhouse, Lambert and 'football operations manager' Gary Karsa all resigned from Colchester to take up positions at Norwich City
Norwich City F.C.
Norwich City Football Club is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk. As of the 2011–12 season, Norwich City are again playing in the Premier League after a six-year absence, having finished as runner up in the Championship in 2010–11 and winning automatic promotion.The...

on 17 August 2009.

As a player

  • UEFA Cup winner 1984
  • Second division Championship winner 1986
  • Norwich City player of the year 1991

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK