Dagenham and Redbridge veteran Jamie Cureton is out to stun Everton: I’m 40... and I’m still the dressing room DJ! 

At 40 he is the oldest outfield player in the Football League, but Jamie Cureton doesn’t look his age.

Strolling into the clubhouse at Dagenham and Redbridge wearing skinny tracksuit bottoms and sporting a spiked-up fringe, it is almost impossible to believe the striker took his footballing bow for Norwich against Everton more than two decades ago.

Fourteen clubs and 284 goals later, Cureton takes on Everton on Saturday with Dagenham in an FA Cup third-round tie worth £100,000 to the League Two club.

Jamie Cureton, the oldest outfield player in the Football League, is gearing up for Everton on Saturday 

Cureton rides the tackle of Arsenal's David Hiller during Norwich's clash at Highbury back in 1994 

Cureton takes on Everton on Saturday with Dagenham in an FA Cup third-round tie worth £100,000 to the club 

However the trip to Goodison Park is far from his last hurrah. Evergreen Cureton says he feels half his age — and has more than just his dress sense in tune with a dressing room whose average age is 25.

‘I still do the music in the changing room,’ says Cureton. ‘I still think of myself as 21. I’m quite down with all of them and I come in with my rucksack on and they all think I look about 25. I’ve not got to the point of suit jackets and jeans yet for training.

‘The music is normally hip hop, RnB, a bit of dance. Everyone seems to like it, nobody moans.

‘At the end of games if we’ve won, I try to drop more old-school stuff from the Nineties but the younger lads like that as well.

‘At the time I started, nobody had a stereo at Norwich,’ he adds.

Cureton controls the ball during training as the Daggers prepare for their trip to Goodison Park 

‘Once I went to Bristol Rovers it was CDs. I used to go to HMV and a guy would give me a stack of house and things, and you’d have to keep changing the CDs. Now I do it from my phone. Half the lads here won’t have ever bought a CD.’

When Cureton made his debut on November 5, 1994, Britpop, not hip hop, dominated the charts. John Stones was five months old and Dave Watson marshalled the Everton back four in a 0-0 at Carrow Road.

‘I have seen the Match of the Day highlights and the only highlight was me having a chance,’ recalls Cureton, who was a second-half substitute that day. ‘I dragged it wide of the near post. I should have scored.

 In a career that has spanned 14 clubs and 284 goals, Cureton has settled into life at Victoria Road 

‘But I can remember it clear as day. All my Premier League experience I remember and I suppose at that point I always thought I was going to be in it. I didn’t get any memorabilia, apart from my own shirts.

‘Then you get relegated and never get back there. You wish you had done something different at that stage, but I took it all for granted, I suppose.’

Prolific at youth level with Norwich, the 14-year-old Cureton turned down a chance to join Manchester United and the Class of ’92. Sir Alex Ferguson even called the forward’s house in an effort to sign him but Cureton felt settled in East Anglia.

Cureton queries a decision during Dagenham & Redbridge's League Two clash with Yeovil Town 

‘After a few years I was back at Bristol Rovers and Lee Martin had a testimonial,’ Cureton recalls.

‘Sir Alex brought his team down, with Beckham and Scholes. He came up to me said, “You should have signed”. He knew even then. I’d have been 21. I scored two and was quite pleased. It was weird, even then he knew who I was.’

Everton are the first top-flight side Cureton has drawn in the FA Cup since his Premier League days and he is looking forward to facing England star Stones, though the defender should think twice before cracking any age jokes.

‘We played Carlisle last season and there was a little ruckus,’ says Cureton. ‘Someone shouted at me, “Shouldn’t you be retired?” I turned around and said, “How old are you?” He said 19. I replied, “I was playing in the Premier League at 19, maybe you should think about that”. My team-mate said to him: “You said that to the wrong person!”

‘I am quite placid on the pitch but because I got stick it was something amusing to say. I found it funny.’

While Cureton admits feeling ‘more stiff and tired’ these days, a diligent training and diet regime keeps him fighting fit. He says: ‘If I get a knock, it tells, and I bruise like a peach. You carry knocks a lot more. But as long as you are doing the right things by Tuesday or Wednesday, you are ready to go. I laugh when I hear the kids talk about being tired today.’

Now in his second season at Dagenham, Cureton is settled with wife Lisa — an artistic director at a performing arts company — though had her singing career taken off, Cureton would probably not be Dagenham’s dressing-room DJ.

‘She was planning to be in a girl band and it didn’t work out,’ he says. ‘If she’d been in Girls Aloud I’d have been laughing — I wouldn’t be playing at 40, I’ll tell you that!’

Despite almost two decades of action on the pitch, evergreen Cureton says he feels half his age