Think Transylvania and it is difficult to avoid the mind wandering to the tales of vampires made famous in fiction and folklore. However, if CFR Cluj continue on their current path, this legendary Romanian region could be responsible for a football fairy tale every bit as fantastic as Bram Stoker's gothic horror story.

That is because this little-known club from Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania's largest city, are currently on course to end Bucharest's epic stranglehold on the Liga 1 title. Romania's league championship has long been hoarded by a dominant duo from the country's capital: Steaua Bucharest, who have lifted the trophy 23 times, and Dinamo, who have topped the table on 18 occasions and claimed silver on 20 more. When the city's third force, Rapid, are added to the equation, it brings the city's tally of top two finishes to a remarkable 88.

Almost as widely accepted as the Bucharest trio's dominance was the view that, if any team from outside the capital could succeed in smashing the triopoly, it was almost certain to be Universitatea Craiova, champions in 1981 and 1991 and the only side to wrest the title from Bucharest in the last 27 years. History, however, could well be rewritten this season, with big-spending CFR Cluj currently leading a championship race in which Rapid, their closest challengers, lie five points behind with 19 matches of the 34-game season already played.

It was only in their final fixture prior to Romania's winter break, in fact, that Ioan Andone's CFR conceded their long unbeaten record, this just weeks after they had become the first provincial side in 48 years to reach the halfway point of the season without tasting defeat. It was Steagul Rosu Brasov who managed this feat all the way back in the 1959/60 season, and though these underdogs ultimately saw the title snatched away by CCA Bucharest - as Steaua were then named - CFR are confident that lightning will not strike twice.

Steaua, after all, currently lie eight points adrift in fourth, with defending champions Dinamo a further six points back in sixth, leaving the way clear for their unfamiliar title rivals to advance towards an historic triumph.

A chequered history
Having celebrated their centenary last year, CFR Cluj are hardly newcomers on the Romanian scene, but since winning the regional Transylvanian title in their third year of existence, they have endured decades of near-anonymity.

Prior to the last couple of years, the high-point of their unexceptionable history had come in 1972, when they ended the Liga 1 season in fifth. It took 35 years for this best-ever finish to be eclipsed, with much of the intervening period spent languishing in the country's second tier. Indeed, it was as recently as January 2002 that the turning point in CFR's history came, with the arrival of a new financial backer in Arpad Paszkany.

At that stage, the club had been trapped in Romania's Divizia B for fully 27 years, and it took a substantial investment in new players in the summer of 2003 to bring about a long overdue return to the top flight. Little did the club's jubilant fans know at the time that this was to prove merely the start.

Their first season back in the big time witnessed CFR finish an unremarkable 11th, comfortably avoiding relegation but hardly threatening the Bucharest giants. They did, however, earn a place in the following season's UEFA Intertoto Cup, and with former Romanian international Dorinel Munteanu taking on the role of player-coach, it was in this competition that they announced their arrival as a force to be reckoned with, eliminating the likes of Athletic Bilbao and St Etienne en route to the final.

It was only at this last hurdle that the Romanians eventually fell - RC Lens proving too strong over two legs - yet the confidence gained from an impressive continental campaign was to prove a springboard for the club to break into the top five back home for the first time in over three decades. Munteanu bade farewell all the same, but despite the change in manager, last season brought further investment and yet more progress as a CFR team now dominated by western Europeans and South Americans made history by finishing third.

However, scaling new heights has clearly failed to satisfy this ambitious Transylvanian outfit, who have once again spent big, shelling out millions of euros for Argentinians Sebastian Dubarbier, Sixto Peralta and Diego Ruiz and, more recently, Lars Hirschfeld and Mikael Dorsin, both of whom starred for Rosenborg in the UEFA Champions League.

With these signings having taken the club's already-substantial foreign contingent to 22, the hope is that it is CFR who will be competing at Europe's highest level next season. Plans are also afoot to double the capacity of the club's stadium and with a first-ever top flight title seemingly within their grasp, this Transylvanian fairy tale might not be so far-fetched after all.