Defender signed by Gary Megson to bolster a flagging defence after the sale of Michael Dawson in early 2005, initially on a short-term deal to try to keep us up.

Once tipped as the next big thing at Manchester United, his star has since waned markedly, to the point where Pompey were happy to let him go on a free. He is experienced and easily good enough for the level we'd reached by the time of his arrival, but he could do nothing to stop our inevitable plunge towards relegation (he'd have had to be superhuman by that stage. so desperate were we at the back).

At the end of the season he was offered a new deal by Gary Megson, but dallied too long thinking about it, only to find the offer withdrawn. A few weeks later, only a couple of days before the season started, they started talking again and this time he signed properly, and went straight into the side at left back. Megson continued to mess him, the side and the supporters around by playing him either at left back or - worse - in midfield as part of his infamous 8-defender teams in late 2005 / early 2006.

Only Megson's departure and the arrival of caretaker managers Charlie McParland and Frank Barlow saw him settle at last into his best position, as a string of effective and mobile performances at right back finally showed us why we'd bothered with him in the first place.

Curtis continued to be solid and effective at right back for all of Colin Calderwood's first season, without ever completely setting the world on fire - in particular, our lack of anything resembling a right winger at the time meant that Curtis was needed to operate on the overlap more than his pace would allow. Sensibly he didn't allow himself to get caught up the wing too often, but that meant that we lacked anything much out wide in attack.

For all his experience and pedigree - and, one assumes, his wages - Curtis was nothing special. It was no great surprise when he was allowed to go on a Bosman in the Summer of 2007.