David Cuffley City striker Jamie Cureton could chalk up a notable landmark when he returns to his home city at the weekend. Cureton's first hat-trick in Canary colours, which helped them to a 5-1 demolition of his former club, Colchester, on Saturday, took him to a career total of 199 goals in all competitions in English club football.

David Cuffley

City striker Jamie Cureton could chalk up a notable landmark when he returns to his home city at the weekend.

Cureton's first hat-trick in Canary colours, which helped them to a 5-1 demolition of his former club, Colchester, on Saturday, took him to a career total of 199 goals in all competitions in English club football.

And the man who scored 78 times in four years for Bristol Rovers would surely love the opportunity to reach his double century at the expense of their deadly rivals, Bristol City, in Saturday's Coca-Cola Championship match at Ashton Gate.

One has to go back well over 13 years for Cureton's very first goal in senior football, when he came off the bench as a teenager to score the Canaries' third in a 3-0 home victory over Chelsea in the FA Premiership.

That was on December 10, 1994, when Ashley Ward scored twice on his Norwich debut before the 19-year-old Cureton opened his account with a glancing header from a Daryl Sutch cross - just 13 seconds after manager John Deehan sent him on as a substitute.

He finished the 1994-95 campaign with four Premiership goals but the Canaries were relegated and, after just 12 outings and two goals in Division One the following season, he was sold by manager Mike Walker to Bristol Rovers for £250,000 in October 1996. It was the start of a long and winding road that also took him to Reading, Pusan I.cons in South Korea, Queen's Park Rangers, Swindon, Colchester and eventually back to Norwich last summer.

Cureton's best scoring tally came in 2000-01 when he scored 31 goals, all but one of them for Reading, including the opening goal in the Royals' 3-2 defeat at the hands of Walsall in the Division Two (now League One) play-off final at the Millennium Stadium.