DANNY CADAMARTERI has tasted both the sweet and sour of soccer.

And after making the headlines for the wrong reasons, the 27-year-old frontman from Cleckheaton will be determined to let his football do the talking at Town.

The career of the one-time Everton wonderkid hit a low this time last year when his Bradford City contract was terminated after the imposition of a six-month drug ban.

He had been found to have the banned substance ephedrine in his system.

Cadamarteri insisted it came from a flu remedy he had been taking at the time of the test, explaining: "I wasn't educated enough to know what I could take and what I couldn't."

From having a cold, the former England Under 21 player found himself in it.

"I wasn't allowed to train with any other club or any other players. I was cast off to one side and didn't know what to do. I was left to rot," he said.

It was a far cry from October 18, 1997, when his coolly-taken goal sealed Everton's 2-0 home Premiership win over Liverpool.

Everybody wanted to know the 18-year-old who had come through the club's Academy ranks and was making his 10th first-team appearance under Howard Kendall.

It was his fifth goal that season, and it seemed certain Cadamarteri would go on to glorious things at Goodison.

But as the club's fortunes declined, so did those of the player, with a loss of form and a falling out of favour under Kendall's successor Walter Smith going hand in hand with problems off the pitch.

Cadamarteri was sentenced to 180 hours of community service after being found guilty of punching a woman during a late-night fracas in October 2000 (he claimed it was accidental).

"I was a young kid from a small town who was now in a big city like Liverpool," said the man who in the footballing arena, was eclipsed by Kevin Campbell and Francis Jeffers.

"There was so much to do in the city centre and I was exposed to it all. I wanted to find out what it was like."

Cadamarteri had found himself farmed out on loan to then- Championship Fulham in 1999, and Everton eventually let him go in February 2002, when he began the first of his two stints at Bradford with a goalscoring debut in a 4-0 Championship win at Gillingham.

Injuries restricted him to 53 games and six goals in a two-season spell which ended with the Bantams relegated and in administration.

Leeds was his next port of call, but after only a couple of months and one outing as a substitute, Cadamarteri was off to Championship rivals Sheffield United in a £50,000 deal completed by Neil Warnock in September 2004.

After 22 games for the Blades and one goal, he returned to Bradford, by now in League I, in June 2005, signing a two-year deal which was terminated halfway through with Cadamarteri's career seemingly in tatters.

Unwilling to throw in the towel, however, Cadamarteri served his suspension and last November, was handed a trial by Barnsley, then managed by Andy Ritchie.

The Reds' decision to part company with Ritchie meant Cadamarteri remained on the sidelines until Conference club Grays Athletic signed him on a match-by-match basis in December.

In the event, there were just two appearances, against York in the league and Weymouth in the FA Trophy, before Leicester provided a passport back to the Championship with a six-month deal.

There were nine appearances, all from the bench, for the Foxes (as well as the goal which sealed an FA Cup third-round replay against Fulham), as well as six matches (and a goal) on loan to Doncaster, who were reportedly interested in making the signing permanent before Town stepped in.

Now, with a two-year contract providing both stability and security, Cadamarteri has the chance to get a career which had been drifting firmly back on track.