Cardiff City, West Brom have Tranmere Rovers to thank for EFL hero | OneFootball

Maverick midfielder Jason Koumas would go on to tear things up at West Brom and Cardiff City, but he topped and tailed his career on the Wirral.

Jason Koumas could be a handful at times, and while he was popular with fans wherever he played, he was formed on the banks of the River Mersey.

The way in which Jason Koumas first arrived at Tranmere Rovers spoke volumes about what would happen throughout his career. Blessed with enormous natural talent, he'd first joined the youth system at Liverpool at 9 years of age, but a falling out with youth coaches - who wanted to play him wide rather than where he wanted to play, in central midfield alongside one Steven Gerrard - led to him leaving the club and going to Tranmere instead.

His debut for them came from the substitutes' bench at Walsall on the opening day of the 1998-99 First Division season, and a 25-minute cameo in which his most notable achievement was picking up a yellow card. After three further appearances from the bench, he was put into the first eleven - in that attacking central midfield role he'd craved at Liverpool - for a trip to Oldham Athletic, which Tranmere won 1-0 - their first League win of the season.

The rest, as they say, is history...

Jason Koumas was part of a Tranmere Rovers team who went to places they'd never been to before

Throughout his first senior season at Prenton Park, Koumas's excellence became increasingly evident. He scored his first goal in a 2-2 draw at Bristol City in February 1999, and it seemed to set something off in him; it was the first of four goals in seven matches before injury disrupted the end of his season. Tranmere finished the season in a reasonably creditable 15th place in the table.

The following season saw them finish 13th, but it was in the cups that they excelled, going all the way to Wembley in the League Cup before losing narrowly to Leicester City, while in the FA Cup they beat West Ham, Sunderland and Fulham before losing 3-2 at home to Newcastle United in the quarter-finals, a match in which Koumas didn't play.

The 2000-01 season saw Koumas break through into the national consciousness. Again, the domestic cups were key. Tranmere reached the last 16 of the League Cup before losing on penalty kicks to Crystal Palace, but they caused one of the shocks of the season in the FA Cup when they beat Everton 3-0 at Goodison Park in the Fourth Round, with Koumas on the score sheet, and then came from three down to beat Southampton 4-3 in the Fifth Round. Their FA Cup run only came to an end in the quarter-finals, when they were beaten 4-2 at home by Liverpool.

But this time around, the cups proved to be a distraction. Tranmere struggled in the League for much of the season and, having won just one of their last 15 League games of the season, they were relegated in bottom place in the table. After Rovers finished the 2001-02 season in 9th place in the third tier, Koumas was on his way. A £2.25 million offer from West Bromwich Albion was enough to end his five years in the Tranmere team.

Koumas shone at West Brom & Cardiff City, but his return to Tranmere Rovers was an unhappy one

Over the next eleven years, Koumas would play for West Bromwich Albion, Cardiff City and Wigan Athletic, leaving an indelible mark on the first two of these clubs. In 2004 he was named in the PFA's Championship Team of the Season and signed a new contract with the club that summer, but another falling out was coming, this time with the Baggies manager Bryan Robson, which resulted in him being sent on loan to Cardiff City.

Cardiff was a good fit for Koumas. By this time he was, after all, an established Welsh international. For the second time in three years he was included in the PFA's Championship Team of the Season in 2006. and when Cardiff tried to sign him permanently but were unable to agree a fee with West Brom, he effectively went on strike before a change of heart led to him signing a new contract and returning to The Hawthorns.

His return only lasted a year before Wigan Athletic paid £5.3 million for him in 2007. But injuries and an inability to hold down a place in the first team resulted in him being sent on loan to Cardiff for a second time. On this occasion, he couldn't manage what he achieved before and returned to Wigan at the end of the season, and was released upon the expiry of his contract in 2011.

Without a club, he returned to Tranmere Rovers in 2013 to train and impressed sufficiently to earn himself a contract at Prenton Park. But the last two years of his career were not particularly happy ones. The 2013-14 season saw Tranmere relegated to League Two, and at the end of the following season they were relegated from the EFL altogether, dropping into the non-league game for the first time since 1921. Koumas retired from playing that summer.

Jason Koumas remains fondly remembered at both West Brom and Cardiff, but Tranmere Rovers was the club that made him, and he arguably reached his peak as a player at Prenton Park. Rovers' cup exploits in 2000 and 2001 were unprecedented for the club, and while Koumas' way of playing the game didn't always delight his managers, it certainly did the fans. He'll long be remembered as a key part of one of their most successful teams, and Cardiff and West Brom - who enjoyed his talents at a higher level - really do have Tranmere to thank.