Pop is a battleground, and for every bright star leading the honourable charge on the charts under the sunlit, time-honoured regimental banners of "enduring talent" or "next big thing", there are the casualties of the music industry, yesterday's men and women whose careers lie in ruins in the mud of no man's land, whose aspirations blow like rags on the rusting barbed wire.

Former Bradford Cathedral choirboy Gareth Gates was the East Bowling teenager who shot to fame on ITV's ground-breaking TV talent contest Pop Idol, the stammering underdog who sang like an angel and breezed through the heats, winning fans with his fresh-faced teenage looks, his unassuming air, his charming naivet, eventually getting to the grand final in 2002 and narrowly finishing second to Will Young.

Itwasn't just a case of winner takes all, though, as 17-year-old Gareth was snapped up by the influential and far-reaching management company 19 Entertainment and was launched as a pop star alongside Will Young, his first hit being a mum-pleasing rendition of old favourite Unchained Melody.

But four years is a long time in pop music, and last week it was confirmed by his record company, Sony BMG, that they would not be renewing his record deal. And suddenly, it seemed that the dream could well be over.

The news came just three days after a prescient Telegraph & Argus article to mark the fourth anniversary of Gareth's first hit single.

Pondering the whereabouts of Gareth's muchvaunted third album, we asked 19 Entertainment whither the prince of pop.

They were typically vague: "Gareth is in the recording studio and has been for the past year.

He has virtually done the album but we cannot say when it will be out. We cannot release any information on the album until it's done."

Tellingly, two press officers at BMG were "unable to respond to the T&A's questions about Gareth's future", with the excuse that "the person who dealt with him was unavailable".

It did seem, however, that the album Gareth had been working on for a year was not to BMG's taste. His first album, What My Heart Wants To Say, went straight to No.1 in October, 2002. His second, Go Your Own Way, peaked at number 11 in the album charts less than a year later.

By Friday, 19 Entertainment were churning out the briefest of statements once again: "We can confirm that, sadly, Sony BMG have decided not to renew Gareth Gates's record deal. 19 Entertainment, however, will continue to work closely with Gareth and support him on what we believe to be an exciting future and we look forward to revealing further plans for him soon."

The question is, how long will his fans wait? If his new album does find a new home, it will have been at least three years since his last effort. Do pop fans - particularly the younger market that Gareth was aimed at - remain loyal for such long periods?

His Pop Idol oppo Will Young seems to have hit the right note. Shortly after winning the competition, he came out as gay and won himself approval from an affluent sector of music fans.

His music appeals to an older, less fickle market, and he has broadened the appeal of his "brand" by appearing in movies such as the Judi Dench vehicle Mrs Henderson Presents.

He has also, crucially, released a steady stream of albums and singles and has managed to portray himself as an artist more in control of his music than as a management company poppet.

Away from the music, Gareth has also had ups and downs in his personal life. Between albums he began to become a fixture on the London party scene, getting snapped by the paparazzi, and eventually, after a to-and-fro tabloid spat of claim and counter-claim, admitted a fling with pneumatic glamour model Jordan.

Jordan (real name Katie Price, now married to another once-thought-expired pop star Peter Andre), spilled all to the red-tops in 2003 and said she had enjoyed a three-month relationship with Gareth.

His subsequent denials infuriated the model, and she detailed the coupling in her autobiography.

Eventually, Gareth came clean in a magazine interview and admitted: "At the end of Pop Idol I did have a brief relationship with Jordan. I was 17 years old and had just moved from Bradford to London when, to be honest, I was pursued by her. I shouldn't have denied it, but I did. I was naive."

Not to be outdone on the publicity front, Gareth released his own autobiography in 2003, when hewas aged just 19. But rather than kiss-andtell stories, he simply got his hometown fans' backs up when he announced in the book, Talking Point, that he often told people who had never heard of Bradford that he was actually a London boy, because "it makes them happier".

His decision to relocate not only himself and his career but his roots down to the capital earned the ire of no less a professional Yorkshireman than the late, lamented Richard Whiteley, who fumed: "This guy has done a great deal for Bradford and is a great ambassador for the city - he should stick with it."

Perhaps, you are wondering, what does Gareth himself have to say about all this? The problem all media - even Gareth's local newspaper the T&A - have had throughout his career is the tightly screwed-down publicity arrangements that 19 Entertainment insists on with regards to Gareth.

He was not allowed to speak to newspapers or magazines without 19's strict control and when he made one of his rare appearances in Bradford, such as at a gig in Centenary Square or Bingley's Myrtle Park, 19 tried to get the T&A to agree to contracts effectively signing over copyright of any images of Gareth taken by our own photographers - something no celebrity, no matter how famous or important, has ever asked of us before.

But what of the future for Gareth Gates now? If his management team is to be believed, it will only be a matter of time before he finds a new record label and his third album will be out before you know it.

And, let's face it, such things happen all the time in pop music - current chart darlings, Bradford-based Embrace, were dumped by their record label in 2002 and they packed it in to be painters and decorators. And now they're recording the official England team World Cup anthem.

Following his success controlling his stammer with the famous McGuire Programme, Gareth trained as a speech coach himself, and the tabloid rumour mill speculated last week that he had "ordered thousands of pounds of equipment" and was hoping to train as a gym instructor.

One thing's for sure: listed in the Sunday Times Rich List last year as having a personal fortune of £5 million, whether he becomes collateral damage in pop's dirty war or rises phoenix-like from the ashes with a storming new album, Gareth is unlikely to be spotted down the JobCentre in the meantime.