December 13 – Curbs Your Enthusiasm

OUR favourite fact about Alan Curbishley is that his big brother Bill is the music agent for The Who.

Curbs junior has got to be pretty gutted that he’s a Premiership manager and his brother has still got a more exciting job than him.

It was on this day in 2006 that Alan swept through the doors at Upton Park to take charge of West Ham as part of the new Icelandic regime at the club headed (geddit? headed?!) by professional peculiar-looking person Eggert Magnusson.

Curbs had been kicking his heals for a few months after leaving Charlton Athletic at the end of the previous season where he had been manager for 743 years.

Curbs had, like the rest of us, got a bit bored with Charlton’s mid-table mediocrity season after season and had hoped to be given a bash at managing England. When the FA overlooked him in favour of an actual clown, Alan decided it was probably time to jump ship from The Valley anyway and see what positions would come up at his local Job Centre.

He didn’t have to wait long.

West Ham had enjoyed a great season in 2005/06 finishing in the top ten and oh-so-nearly winning the FA Cup. The arrival of Argentine superstars Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano over the summer of 2006 was supposed to take the team on to the next level but things didn’t go to plan.

After the club was taken over by the Icelandic consortium poor league form meant Alan Pardew paid the price with his job, despite the usual votes of confidence from the new owners.

The board turned to Curbs with a brief to avoid relegation, and gave him plenty of wonga to try to save the club from the drop with new signings that were seemingly cursed with injuries.

After an initial torrid run of results Curbs did turn the Hammers’ form around and they won seven out of their last nine games of the season, including a 1-0 win at Old Trafford on the last day to ensure survival.

The relegaton dogfight was set against a whole load of legal wranglings over the signings of the Argentine duo Tevez and Mascherano. Eventually the club was found guilty, but fined rather than given a points deduction which would have ensured relegation.

Pardew meanwhile swapped jobs with Curbs but came in too late to save Charlton who were relegated.

Here is a shell-shocked Curbs after Carlos Tevez scores the winner at Manchester United on the final day to keep the Hammers in the top flight, and come back tomorrow for one of the most significant events in the modern game, and it all started in Belgium.