Alan Curbishley

Llewellyn Charles "Alan" Curbishley (born 8 November 1957) is an English former football player and manager.

He played as a midfielder for West Ham United, Birmingham City, Aston Villa, Charlton Athletic and Brighton & Hove Albion and has worked in the Premier League in management roles at Charlton Athletic and West Ham United.

He is the younger brother of the rock band manager Bill Curbishley, who since the mid-1970s has been manager of The Who.

He began his football playing career with West Ham United, joining them as an apprentice on leaving school in the summer of 1974.

After impressing in West Ham's South East Counties League side and owing to an injury crisis following pre-season training, he was named as substitute against Everton in August 1974 at the age of 16 and became the youngest ever West Ham player to be named on the teamsheet, although he did not play.

He made two league and cup appearances in 1974–75, 18 appearances in 1975–76, 12 appearances in 1976–77 and 36 appearances in 1977–78, while competing for a midfield position with Trevor Brooking, Alan Devonshire, Pat Holland, Geoff Pike and Billy Bonds.

He made his first team debut in a 1–0 home defeat against Chelsea in March 1975, coming into the team for Billy Bonds who was out with an injury, and in the summer, he was a member of the West Ham youth team, alongside Alvin Martin, Geoff Pike, and Paul Brush, that was beaten by Ipswich Town 5–1 on aggregate in the final of the FA Youth Cup.

Curbishley's first win with the club and first goal came in a 2–1 home win over Newcastle in October 1975, in which he had replaced an injured Trevor Brooking in the starting line-up.

His arrival in the first team was so impressive that he was given the nickname "Whizz" by teammate Pat Holland.

He appeared in both legs of the West Ham's European Cup Winners' Cup 3rd round tie against Den Haag in March 1976, aged 18, although he did not play in the semi-final games against Eintracht Frankfurt nor in the final against Anderlecht.

After West Ham were relegated at the end of the 1977–78 season, he fell out with manager, John Lyall, and although he made a further 28 appearances for West Ham in 1978–79, he subsequently transferred to Birmingham City in April 1979 for a fee of £225,000.

While at Birmingham City, he won his only England U-21 cap against Switzerland in 1980.

He was selected for the England B squad in 1981, but a fractured kneecap ended his involvement with England.

He joined local rivals Aston Villa in 1983 but a change of managers saw him transferred again to Charlton Athletic in the following year.

He began his first period at Charlton Athletic in 1984, helping them to promotion to Division 1 in 1985–86.

He then moved to Brighton & Hove Albion in 1987.

He helped them win promotion to the Second Division as Third Division runners-up in his first season.

He has also managed Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin since the 1990s

He returned to Charlton as player/coach under the management of Lennie Lawrence in 1990 and would stay there for 16 years.

Curbishley was capped at schoolboy level for England and was a regular in the England youth team.

When Lennie Lawrence left in July 1991, Curbishley became joint manager of the club with Steve Gritt, taking sole command from June 1995 and masterminding the revival of the club's fortunes with two promotions and consolidation into the Premier League.

Under Alan Curbishley Charlton won promotion, via the play-offs in 1997–98 after a thrilling play-off final against Sunderland at Wembley.

The match ended in a 4–4 draw with Charlton winning 7–6 on penalty kicks, to take their place in the Premiership for 1998–99.

Charlton had a good first month of the season with a 5–0 home win over Southampton and credible 0–0 draws away to Newcastle United and Arsenal respectively, which saw Curbishley win Manager of the Month for August.

However, after victory over Nottingham Forest, in the first game of October, Charlton won just one more game (against West Ham 4–2), before a dreadful run that yielded only three points from 13 games, including eight consecutive defeats, by February 1999.

Charlton then won three in a row against Wimbledon, Liverpool and Derby, and Curbishley was again Manager of the Month, but the damage was already done.

Charlton won just two more games before the end of the season.

The double was completed over the Hammers and Aston Villa were beaten 4–3, leaving the Addicks needing a last-day victory over Sheffield Wednesday while hoping that Southampton failed against Everton.

Charlton lost and Southampton won so the Addicks were relegated back to Division One.

The club resisted the knee-jerk reaction to relegation of replacing their manager, and keeping that continuity proved an investment that paid dividends.

With the prolific Andy Hunt netting 24 league goals, aided by Clive Mendonca on 9, John Robinson and Graham Stuart on 7 and Richard Rufus on 6, Charlton stormed to the First Division championship winning 27 of their 46 league games to take the title with 91 points, two points ahead of Manchester City.

Then, as if quashing any doubts about their title-winning form, Charlton thumped City 4–0 on the opening day of the Premiership.

Charlton didn't have a prolific scorer in 2000–01 and again the goals were more widespread among the team.

Jonatan Johansson finished top scorer with 11 league goals, and Shaun Bartlett, Claus Jensen, Graham Stuart and Mathias Svensson all hit five each.

In December 2013 he was appointed technical director at Fulham only to be removed from the role in February 2014.

He again joined Fulham's coaching staff in March 2015.

Curbishley was one of five children born to a London docker and his wife.

He grew up a mile from West Ham station.

He was educated at South West Ham Technical School.

Curbishley is married.