NEW City coach Paul Stephenson is hoping history will repeat itself as he looks to help Glenn Roeder pull a club out of relegation trouble for the second time in his career.

The final details of Stephenson's switch from the youth team of Hartlepool to the position of first team coach at Carrow Road look close to being finalised after weeks of wrangling behind the scenes.

Once Stephenson is finally officially on-board, it will be the second time Roeder has called on the former Newcastle winger to help him bail a side out of trouble.

Back in 1992, Stephenson was plying his trade with Millwall after injury prematurely ended his hoped of a prolonged career with Newcastle, despite graduating to the first team at the same time as a certain Paul Gascoigne.

With him unable to tie-down a regular first team place after five years in London, the 24-year-old received an SOS call from former Newcastle team-mate Roeder, who had taken over as manager of Gillingham.

The Gills were fighting relegation to the Conference in the old third division, with Stephenson having to drop down a division if he wanted to help out his old pal.

But Stephenson agreed to join Gillingham's relegation fight, and 12 starts and two goals later he and Roeder had steered the club to midtable safety, a virtual miracle considering how deep in trouble the club was when Roeder took charge.

Clearly, the parallels at Norwich are for all to see, with the Canaries still bottom of the Championship despite a recent up-turn in form. And Stephenson hoped he and Roeder could again combine to this time steer City out of trouble.

He told CanariesWorld: "Obviously I went to Gillingham on loan when I was at Millwall and I think they were six points adrift at the bottom of the division and we ended halfway up the table.

"I've said to him 'we've done it once, let's do it again'. Hopefully we will."

Stephenson completes Roeder's backroom team, with another Geordie in the form of Lee Clark already on-board. And Clark was another player who Stephenson knew from his youth.

"I've known Glenn for a long time and I've known Lee since we were kids," he said. "I think I played against Lee when he was seven and I was 10 and he was a mint little player then. We go back a long way."

Today, at statement from Hartlepool chairman Ken Hodcroft on Hartlepool's official website said Stephenson left the club with their best interests - and explained their reasons as to why the move had taken as long as it had.

"The move has not gone as smoothly as both parties would have liked but Norwich refused to accept that Paul had a contract with a long notice period with this Club," he said.

"Due legal process dictates that such notice period has to be adhered to or negotiated. Once Norwich realised that HUFC just don't give up their assets for 'nothing' they entered into discussions with the Club.

"The position has now been resolved to everyone's satisfaction and we certainly wish Paul every success for the future.

"Paul was a very dedicated employee during his time at the Club and I am sure he will bring the same dedication and enthusiasm to Norwich and I'm sure he will go onto a very promising future in football management."

And while Stephenson said there were still one or two outstanding issued to be cleared up, he was at least pleased the matter was almost at an end.

"Obviously that was something we were hoping to get cleaned-up pretty quickly, and there are still one or two little things that need to get brushed-up and sorted, but hopefully the two clubs can sort them in the next couple of days and we can crack on with the job in hand, which is getting up that table," said the coach, who has still been a visible presence at City's last few matches.

"It's been great taking the players. It's a good level of play to take and it's a step up from what I've been doing. It's a great challenge for me to really push these lads and get them up to the standard we require to get them up the table. It's a tough job, but we've got to make sure we really push for high standards all the time.

"I had a sniff of management at Hartlepool, obviously it was under really difficult circumstances. But it gave us a real look and insight into what it's all about. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. I was really into the development of players when I was youth team coach there and we did develop quite a few and there's a few there who are doing really well now. But it just gave us a real taste of what it's like at the next level. I knew that coming here would be the sort of challenge I was looking for."