LEE Bullock has admitted that a packed Bootham Crescent three years ago convinced him that Cardiff City would be a club worth signing for in the future.

The Welsh club filled the away end on their way to automatic promotion from Division Three in April 2001 and Bullock, then an impressionable teenage midfielder for City, was impressed by the support.

City fought out a 3-3 draw with Cardiff, as Leo Fortune-West bagged a hat-trick for the visitors and, having arrived on loan at Ninian Park yesterday, Bullock said: "I couldn't believe how many fans travelled up from Wales - they were awesome.

"We'd lost 4-0 at Ninian Park earlier in the season and the atmosphere that day was like nothing I had ever experienced before.

"Then Cardiff came to York and made sure of promotion by earning a point. Their fans filled the ground and I can remember going out onto the pitch and thinking 'wow'.

"I realised for the first time that Cardiff City were on the rise and ever since then their result has been one of the first I have looked for. I can't wait to pull on the blue shirt and run out in front of those fans who impressed me when Leo Fortune-West scored his hat-trick four years ago."

Bullock, who recently watched his favourite club Middlesbrough lift the Carling Cup at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, also added that the chance to play alongside some of the Riverside club's former players was an attraction in a move to the Bluebirds.

He said: "It seems incredible that only a few years ago I was cheering on Graham Kavanagh from the stands at Middlesbrough. Now he's one of the senior players I look up to.

"There is a strong Middlesbrough connection at Cardiff City with the gaffer (Lennie Lawrence), Kav, Tony Vidmar and Andy Campbell. I've known them all as a Boro fan and now I know them as club-mates."

Campbell's brother Neil started his career at Bootham Crescent before joining Scarborough and Bullock also decided to sign for City as a youngster despite approaches from his first love Middlesbrough.

"I looked at the two clubs and felt York would offer more opportunities," Bullock said. "Now Cardiff City have offered me the chance of playing in the First Division and beyond."

Meanwhile, Chris Brass will use the money saved by Bullock's departure to Cardiff to sign one or two new strikers.

Brass was on a spying mission at a reserve match last night and is confident that at least one deal can be done before the weekend.

Updated: 10:45 Thursday, March 11, 2004