Zamora is yet another example of Bristol Rovers' ability to pick a striker, although for once it was not the Pirates who benefited from his goalscoring prowess.
He made only six substitute appearances for the club, and had been loaned out to Bath City, when Brighton & Hove Albion took him for a three-month temporary stint at the end of the 1999/2000 season.
The striker was a revelation, netting six goals in six games, and the Seagulls made sure he was on their books for the start of the following campaign. Rovers sold Zamora for £100,000, but wisely insisted on a 25 per cent sell on clause.
The player soon emerged as one of the brightest young talents in the lower divisions, and Brighton were a different side without him up front.
He scored 31 goals in his first full season as Brighton took the Third Division title, and then smashed another 32 in 2001/02.
The goal machine was hampered by injury in the 2002/03 campaign, certainly a factor in the club's immediate relegation from the First Division.
But bigger clubs had been watching Zamora for some time, and Brighton had turned down numerous bids as they refused to let him go on the cheap.
However, with Albion in the Second Division an offer of £1.5million from Tottenham Hotspur proved too good to turn down and in July 2003 he earned a crack at the Premiership.
Zamora had scored a superb 83 goals in 136 games.
And he marked his first game in a Spurs shirt with two goals against Oxford United in a pre-season friendly.
But it was all downhill from there. Zamora struggled to settle in the top flight, his solitary Spurs goal coming in a League Cup victory over West Ham United.
As the transfer window closed in January 2004, Zamora was offloaded. Coincidentally, it was West Ham who took the player as a makeweight in the deal which saw Jermain Defoe move to Spurs.
Life in East London started well as Zamora scored the equaliser in a 2-1 victory at Bradford City. But he only scored for more goals over the remainder of the season, which saw West Ham miss out on promotion in the play-offs.
The jury was very much out among the Hammers fans about Zamora.
He was beset by a number of injury woes in 2004/05. But a tally of just seven goals in the normal Championship season was still a poor return.
He played more games from the bench than he did from the start as Teddy Sheringham and Marlon Harewood were preferred up front.
And in January there was much talk of a transfer to Crystal Palace, though a move didn't materialise.
However, he redeemed himself in the play-offs. Against Ipswich Town in the semi-finals he bagged West Ham's second in a 2-2 draw, and he also bagged both goals in the return leg as they won 2-0 at Portman Road.
But the best was saved for the final in Cardiff, Zamora scoring the only goal as West Ham returned to the Premiership.
Those performances could kick-start his Upton Park career but, much like Harewood, there has to be a great deal of doubt about Zamora's ability to make it in the Premiership.
