Reluctant journeyman Martin now shooting for the top with Derby
THE upper echelons of the Barclays Premier League scoring charts are, perhaps surprisingly, rarely ever the exclusive preserve of the impossibly football rich and world famous.
Leicester City’s signing from Fleetwood Town, Jamie Vardy, leads this season’s formative table ahead of Sergio Aguero. Charlie Austin muscled out Alexis Sanchez to claim fourth in the race last year.
A combined 32-goal haul in the first two seasons of Southampton’s smart start to life back in the top flight granted Bristol Rovers’ finest Rickie Lambert an England career and transfer to Liverpool.
So a comfortable record of lower-league scoring all the way from a fourth-tier foundation can be transferred to the elite by the best grafters in the game.
Chris Martin fits that hard-working description and it is that quality company he is exerting himself to join in a third full campaign with promotion nearly-men Derby County.
Powered by a troublesome period in his life — shunted around on lower division loans by then Premier League Norwich — Martin is hell-bent on testing his talents against the higher flyers.
Now off the mark for Scotland thanks to his header against Gibraltar last Sunday, Martin routinely beats £8million Jordan Rhodes and £11m Ross McCormack to a place in Gordon Strachan’s squad. The 26-year-old has been a consistently reliable source of Championship goals, netting 21 in 2014/15 to follow 25 from a campaign that ended in unjust Play-Off Final agony against Queens Park Rangers.
Derby was, initially, the last of four loan stints that took Martin round the country and through the divisions at Luton Town, Swindon and Crystal Palace.
‘It’s always been my goal to get back to the Premier League,’ said Martin, picked for a handful of top-flight Norwich games by Paul Lambert four years ago then declared unwanted by Chris Hughton.
‘Derby are geared up to do it and I feel like I am ready to do it as well. I had a team-mate at Norwich in Grant Holt who played in every league consecutively all the way through, scoring goals.
‘Rickie Lambert did the same sort of thing. It shows that it’s possible. ‘That’s what hard work can get you and, if you keep doing that, then your dream can come true.
‘Going out on the loans wasn’t a great time for me. I had a young family. Moving around and staying in hotels wasn’t great. But I needed to do it to put myself back on the map.
‘Derby was like finding another home. I’ve been settled since and I think that’s been shown by my performances on the pitch.’