BRADFORD CITY have launched an ambitious bid to bring Darren Moore back to Valley Parade.
Moore, 34, made 31 appearances in the Premier League for Derby County last season but is expected to join the exodus at Pride Park as Paul Jewell looks to re-build ahead of the club's return to the Championship.
Bantams manager Stuart McCall, a te
am-mate of Moore when City won promotion to the Premier League in 1999, was alerted to the defender's availability several weeks ago.
City refused to comment, but the Yorkshire Post understands talks have already taken place over a possible return for one of the club's most popular players of the past decade.
Bradford will face stiff competition with several Championship and League One managers believed to be tracking the 6ft 3ins defender, named Derby's player of the season last month.
McCall and assistant Wayne Jacobs, also a former team-mate of Moore, will be hoping the lure of a return to a club where he enjoyed some of his happiest days will prove decisive.
Should Bradford win the race for Moore, it will represent a tremendous coup for the League Two club and send out a clear message of intent ahead of the 2008-09 campaign.
The Bantams, whose cut-price season-ticket offer deadline expires on Sunday, endured a disappointing return to the basement division last time with a shocking run of form in the autumn ensuring even a play-off place would be beyond McCall in his first season as a manager.
However, joint chairmen Julian Rhodes and Mark Lawn have since increased the playing budget and recently captured Huddersfield Town midfielder Chris Brandon on a two-year deal.
Terriers striker Luke Beckett has also held talks with Bradford over a possible switch after a fee was agreed between the clubs.
It is the signing of Moore, however, that would most excite fans with the former Jamaican international having been an instrumental part of City's success in the late Nineties.
Signed for a tribunal-fixed £310,000 from Doncaster Rovers in the summer of 1997, he went on to make 62 league appearances and won a place in the PFA Team of the Year in 1998-99 as Bradford won automatic promotion under Jewell.
A contract row led to his departure before Moore could play for Bradford in the Premier League, but he went on to realise his aim of joining the elite two years later with West Bromwich Albion.
Moore has since won two more promotions to the top flight, helping the Baggies return to the elite league in 2004 and then Derby in 2007.
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