Lee Power was not exactly a roaring success at Bradford City - a serious viral illness in the first fortnight of his spell at Valley Parade saw to that.

But the striker, now rebuilding his career at Halifax Town, retains a strong affection for the club five years after he joined them from tomorrow's opponents Norwich City for £200,000.

He believes they will win promotion under his former team mate Paul Jewell.

"I think they will go up automatically," he said, "There was a little blip against Sunderland this week, but City have been the most consistent side in the First Division over the last six or seven months.

"I think it will be tight, but I think they have got enough ability to go straight up and we are all keeping our fingers crossed for them."

Power was chairman Geoffrey Richmond's first signing. The size of the fee - an the fact that Power was playing with a Premiership club - was a clear statement that he meant business and that progress has continued ever since.

Power scored two goals in his first two matches - a 2-1 home win over Swansea and a 1-1 draw at Reading four days later - but he was taken off towards the end of the Reading match and spent a spell in hospital with a serious illness.

He never recaptured the form he showed in those first two matches and a year later he left for Millwall.

Since then his travels have taken him to Scotland and Plymouth, but now he is back in West Yorkshire.

His girlfriend Joanne is from Eccleshill and he has bought a house at Hebden Bridge.

London-born Power also retains happy memories of time at Carrow Road.

In fact, he said: "I played 50 Premiership matches for Norwich as well as a UEFA Cup tie against Inter Milan. We were beaten 1-0 in both legs, but it was still a nice experience.

"I think I did quite well at Norwich, but there was a lot of trouble at the time. We were about ten points clear at Christmas and the manager, Mike Walker asked for some money to spend to try to strengthen the squad and was refused.

"We finished third and a lot of the players were disappointed when the chairman didn't put his hand in his pocket to give us the best opportunity the club had ever had to win something.

"We had a very good team with Ruel Fox, Chris Sutton and Tim Sherwood, all young players at the start of their careers. They all left Norwichasthe club made a lot of money to ease their financial position."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.