A Bradford City fan who handed over a large chunk of his weekly wage to help the club when it was in crisis in 1983 will fly from his Australia home to be at the Capital One Cup Final at Wembley.

Life-long supporter Mark Jagger, 48, was second in line to pledge £20 of his £35 apprentice wage to the Save City Fund 30 years ago.

He featured in the Telegraph & Argus making his donation to the late ‘Mrs Bradford City’ Gladys Hannah, on August 8, 1983.

At the time the club was facing an anxious wait to find out whether it had been accepted back into the Football League after a long, tortuous battle to save it from extinction, which saw fans raise more than £55,000 to help pay its debts.

And the dad-of-two, who moved to Sydney from Eccleshill in 2003, is pledging his support again, spending 3,000 Australian dollars for a ten-day trip to watch Phil Parkinson’s men take on Swansea in the final on Sunday, February 24.

He said: “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing and there was no doubt in my mind that I had to come back for Wembley.

“It may not happen again in my lifetime and, whatever happens, it’s win-win.”

Mr Jagger has a long connection with the club. He was a general manager for former Bradford firm DPM Fabrications, which worked on safety barriers and staircases when the City’s Midland Road and Bradford End stands were built.

He still has a copy of the T&A article from when he went to Valley Parade to make his pledge.

“I was a teenager, living with my parents and got paid £35 a week as an apprentice,” he said. “I used to pay my parents £10-£15 a week board and gave the remaining £20 to the club.

“I wanted to do what I could to give my support. I still have the receipt now.”

The landscape gardener, who grew up in Tyersal, will fly to the UK on Wednesday, February 20, and hoped a friend would get him a ticket for the match when they went on sale today.

“We can’t lose now – we’ve got to the final and that’s it,” said Mr Jagger.

“Everybody’s going to enjoy themselves and we were never expected to get this far.

“I can’t wait!”