Given his reputation as one of the most ebullient spirits in the French game, you could be mistaken for thinking Jean-Claude Darcheville has enjoyed a trouble-free life. Nothing could be further for the truth for this highly-ambitious, jet-heeled striker, who has seen his dreams collapse around him time and time again. Vilified by sections of the Girondins support in 2004/05, he will surely bounce back once again, as he always has.

Raised in Guyana, 'Darche' caught the eye playing for his local club Sina Mary, where he was coached by Lyon winger Florent Malouda's dad. It was Malouda senior who paid for Darcheville's plane ticket when Sochaux offered him a trial, but although that episode did not work out, he finally got his break playing in the Overseas Territories Final at the Parc des Princes. A Rennes scout recommended him to the club, and the man known as 'the Rocket' relocated to Brittany at the start of the 1995/96 season.

His modest new team lacked an academy, and the then-teenager was thrown straight in at the deep end: "I'd never even worked on physique before that or looked after my diet. These things didn't come easily." Muscular, broad-shouldered and above all lightning quick, he soon drew comparisons with Ronaldo, while his weight problems earned him a new, less flattering nickname – 'Gronaldo' (Fat Ronaldo).

Three modest seasons later, tragedy struck when his girlfriend and her two children were killed in a car crash in Guyana. Desperate for a change of scenery, he was loaned out for a season to Nottingham Forest, but after making a blistering start to his Premiership career, he earned himself a reputation for wastefulness and fell out with Coach Dave Bassett. "I was young and it was a bad time for me. I was not very happy," he recalls.

Rennes boss Paul Le Guen sent him to Lorient when his loan spell ended, where the Ligue 2 side's Coach Christian Gourcuff accused him of selfish play and wasting too much possession.

He often featured on the right of midfield, but still scored 25 goals in two seasons, helping the club up into the elite. And under the watchful eye of new Coach Angel Marcos, he began to transform his game. The Argentinean used him as a centre-forward and taught him to slow down before shooting, and a year after being transfer-listed, he netted 19 Ligue 1 strikes as well as the winner against Bastia in the 2002 Coupe de France Final.

By then he had already signed for Bordeaux, and contributed 11 goals in his first season. Disaster struck again in December 2003, however, when he suffered a serious knee injury against PSG that kept him out of action for almost a year until he finally returned in November 2004.

He accused the club of not supporting him through his convalescence, but is now concentrating on rediscovering the form he showed under Marcos at Lorient. "I've never hidden the fact that my ambition is to make a stack of money," he says with rare honesty. "But I know that if I am to realise my dream of playing in England again, I have to score a lot of goals for Bordeaux."