Keith Curle

Keith Curle (born 14 November 1963) is an English football manager and former professional player, who was most recently the manager of League Two side Hartlepool United.

He played as a centre back from 1981 to 2005, notably in the Premier League for Manchester City, where he was also the club captain.

He also played for Bristol Rovers, Torquay United, Bristol City, Reading, Wimbledon, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Sheffield United, Barnsley.

He was capped three times by England and received four caps at B Team level.

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 further part as the nation crashed out at the first stage and was not selected again.

Back with his club, Curle was promoted to club captain but they were unable to match their 5th-place finish after manager Peter Reid was fired and eventually suffered relegation in the 1995–96 season.

Curle remained with the club during pre-season for the following campaign but was soon stripped of his captaincy and transfer-listed before being sold to Wolves in August 1996 for £650,000.

He spent four seasons at Molineux as the club tried to win promotion to the Premier League.

His first season with the team saw them lose in the play-offs to Crystal Palace, but they failed to qualify for them in his subsequent seasons.

He was however made club captain and led to the side to an FA Cup semi-final in 1998, where they lost to eventual double winners Arsenal.

The promise of a coaching role saw him move to Sheffield United in 2000 and he spent two years working with manager Neil Warnock in this capacity, scoring once as a player against Bradford City.

He became player-manager of Mansfield Town in 2002, where he remained until 2005.

He later managed Chester City, Torquay United, Notts County, Carlisle United, Northampton Town and Oldham Athletic.

He joined Barnsley in 2002 but stayed just two months before ending his contract by mutual consent and joining third flight club Mansfield Town, where he was soon appointed player-manager.

He played through the remainder of the 2002–03 season before focusing solely on management.

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.

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, 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".

However, a disastrous losing run of 11 games in 12 cost Curle his job in February 2006 after just nine months in charge.

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 renewed and he was replaced by Leroy Rosenior on 17 May 2007.

Curle reunited with Neil Warnock, when the latter was appointed manager of Championship side Crystal Palace in October 2007 and immediately brought Curle into his coaching team.

Curle followed Warnock across London to Queens Park Rangers on 1 March 2010, again as coach.

On 8 January 2012, he was sacked by the club with manager Warnock and assistant manager Mick Jones.

On 20 February 2012, he was named as manager of Notts County.

Curle made an impressive start to his reign at Notts County winning his first four games.