When the news that Eddie Youds was heading for Charlton Athletic was revealed in Wednesday night's Telegraph & Argus, it came as a major shock to the City faithful.

The 27-year-old defender was a leading candidate to be the club's Player of the Year.

And after being out of action for the previous 14 months due to a career-threatening injury, Youds' performances have served as an inspiration to his team-mates.

Ironically he scored his first goal of the season for the Bantams in last week's 3-1 defeat at Tranmere Rovers, but it was his no-nonsense approach and tenacious tackling style for which his play drew strong praise from both Chris Kamara and Paul Jewell .

City chairman Geoffrey Richmond says the player would still be at the club if it had not been for the Bosman Ruling. However despite his departure being surrounded in controversy, there is no denying the huge part Youds has played in the club's progress.

Some fans have said the player should have remembered the way City supported him through his injury nightmare when discussing a new contract.

But there is no doubting that Charlton have signed a fine player to help their promotion push.

Richard Murray certainly believes so. He said: "Bradford City were extremely reluctant to release the player and when we first made enquiries back in early February, we were quoted a fee of £1million.

"However, we continued to make our interest known, and as the player only had a year left to run on his contract and would have been a free agent at the end of next season, Bradford finally agreed to let him go."

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