Ian Brett Culverhouse (b1964)
Ian Brett Culverhouse was born in Bishop’s Stortford and was Grantham Town manager from May-October in 2018.
He was a defender who played in the position of right-back. He briefly found fame again on Talksport Sunday warm up.
He began his career with Tottenham Hotspur. 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 as he was an unused substitute for Spurs in the 1984 final against Anderlecht.
In October 1985, Norwich City manager Ken Brown paid £50,000 for Culverhouse, who would go on to spend ten years at Carrow Road. 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.
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 double, the 1992-93 campaign when the Canaries finished third in the inaugural season of the FA Premier League and the subsequent European campaign of 1993–94.
Culverhouse scored two goals for Norwich in his 369 appearances – one in a 1988 Full Members Cup match against Swindon Town, the other in a 1994 league match against Everton. 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 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 FC Hall of Fame – like other former Gingerbread bosses Terry Bly and Martin O’Neill.
He was sold to Swindon Town for £150,000, to the displeasure of many Norwich supporters.
He was released by the Robins in 1998 and played briefly for Kingstonian and Brighton & Hove Albion. He began his coaching career while at Brighton where he coached the youth team. He has subsequently been youth team coach at Barnet, Leyton Orient and Wycombe Wanderers.
Culverhouse was named Colchester United assistant manager under Paul Lambert. Culverhouse, Lambert and ‘football operations manager’, Gary Karsa quit Colchester to take up positions at Norwich City in August 2009.
In July 2012, it was confirmed that Culverhouse and Gary Karsa would be joining Paul Lambert at Aston Villa, following him from Norwich City.
In 2017 Culverhouse was appointed manager of Southern League Premier Division club King’s Lynn Town. He led the club to a second-place finish, after which they lost in the play-off final. He subsequently left King’s Lynn, and was named manager of Grantham Town at the end of May 2018.
But he departed in October ‘for personal reasons’ following a 7-0 defeat by Matlock Town.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.