Matt Derbyshire: 'I didn't care about the financial side. It was because I supported Rovers as a kid, and was brought up in Blackburn'

From the end of the street that Matt Derbyshire lives on you can see the roof of Ewood Park, a 15-minute walk down the hill. And when you hear the remarkable story of this Blackburn lad's improbable rise to become a Premiership striker, the proximity of his place of work is appropriate. In modern English football, the notion of a local hero, a player who comes from the community he represents, is dying out - but this particular hero is very local indeed.

Tomorrow, Derbyshire is set to be in the Blackburn Rovers team who take on Chelsea at Old Trafford for a place in the FA Cup final. Until he scored against Manchester United last month, he had never even been inside Old Trafford, although little more than three years ago he turned down the chance to sign for United in favour of his hometown team. That tale itself is only one of the many twists in the story of a boy who came from non-league football to make it in the big time. A football story that sounds like it belongs to another era.

Derbyshire, 21 years old today, has seven goals already this season in 14 starts for Blackburn - he is fast and skilful, has boundless energy and the poacher's eye for goal when the ball is loose in the box - as United discovered at Old Trafford. He admits that he is not quite at the stage where he is "pinning" defenders - as he calls it - the art of holding them off with his back to goal that was once perfected by his manager, Mark Hughes - but he is learning fast. Now an England Under-21 international, Derbyshire was a late developer as a teenage footballer but there is no disputing that he has caught up.

He tells his story in a broad Lancashire accent, pausing every now and again to reflect on a dramatic rise through the football hierarchy: from the North West Counties Second Division (five levels below the Conference) with Darwen and Great Harwood Town and then on to Blackburn's academy. He made his debut for the senior team aged 19 and spent last season on loan at Plymouth and Wrexham before making a permanent breakthrough this season into Blackburn's first team. Derbyshire has four goals already in the FA Cup this season - against Everton, Luton Town (two) and Manchester City - and when you hear his story it would not be improbable if he added another tomorrow.

"Living the dream," is how he describes it, although there is nothing about this serious young footballer that makes you think he could get carried away. One of his most vivid descriptions of his non-league apprenticeship was as a teenager playing for Great Harwood Town on a Saturday. "I was playing against lads who were rejected from professional clubs and also lads who had just come back from a Friday night out," he says.

"It was that sort of league, and it was a tough level. There were times when I could smell the beer on the man marking me and he would be telling me: 'I'm going to break your legs today because I'm coming to the end of my career and I don't care any more, I'm going to put you up in the air.'"

He can smile about that now and he even appreciates the experience. "It was a great lesson for me," he says. "I would never change the way I came through because it is a good learning curve." And then there is the other end of the scale, the day he summoned the courage to go into the Newcastle United dressing room to get a shirt signed by his hero, and one-time Blackburn striker, Alan Shearer. It now takes pride of place on the wall in his house, next to the blue and white of a Blackburn shirt with Derbyshire on the back.

Derbyshire was never invited for a trial at a club when he was a kid and he admits he did not start playing properly until he was about 12. Neither his father, nor his older brother had ever played the game - "no one in my family has ever kicked a ball," he says - but he asked his dad if he could have a trial at the local boys' team, Roman Road, and the obsession grew from there. They put him in goal at first but not even that deterred him and he went on to represent his school, Our Lady and Saint John, in Blackburn, albeit, he says, "as a sub most weeks".

The breakthrough came when he was 15 and the manager of Darwen FC's youth team, Andy McNally, spotted him playing for his school and asked him to join. McNally has remained a friend ever since, although Derbyshire did not last long at Darwen. They disbanded the youth team in favour of the ladies' side and he was soon looking for another club. By then he was 16, ready to leave school and in need of a job. He wanted to keep playing football and, living in Blackburn, that meant just one choice.

With the help of McNally he got a job working for Blackburn Rovers on their community scheme, coaching local schoolchildren. From such humble beginnings did a promising career grow: he still has the same employers but the responsibilities are very different nowadays. "It was a good job, I enjoyed it. I was coaching and always had a football at my feet so it was better than a factory job or anything like that," Derbyshire says. "The people I worked with every day were aware I played football but none of the people at the club itself knew."

After Darwen, he joined Great Harwood Town who were once an institution in non-league Lancashire football, re-formed in the late 1970s from Great Harwood FC for whom the likes of Ronnie Clayton and Bryan Douglas, both ex-Blackburn, once played. Now there is no football at all at the Showgrounds - a fire destroyed much of the changing rooms in February 2005 and, with an enormous bill for relaunching the club, they wait in hope for a non-league Jack Walker to come to the rescue. They have since had to resign from the North West Counties League.

At the start of his second season at Great Harwood in 2003, Derbyshire scored 18 goals in eight games and the then 17-year-old striker became the talk of the North-west's football scouts. First it was Unibond League Premier Division sides (two levels below the Conference) who came along. He nearly signed for Radcliffe Borough but decided to hedge his bets and within weeks some of the region's really big names were at the Showgrounds to see what all the fuss was about.

Derbyshire tells these stories with a real clear-eyed innocence. "I was 17 and the manager, John Hughes, would say, 'There are a few people coming to watch you today'. I got a bit nervous because I didn't honestly know what to think. I wanted to say, 'What do you mean? Coming to watch me?'" Just his luck. The first to make their move were the one club in the football galaxy that no Blackburn lad could possibly consider: Burnley. He shakes his head at that one. "Obviously I could never sign for Burnley because I am a Blackburn fan - it just doesn't make sense."

After that he met David Moyes at Everton and was impressed. "Teams came in for me left, right and centre." Next up was a trip to Carrington to see Manchester United's training ground. He never met Sir Alex Ferguson but he was shown around by one of the club's scouts. It was tempting but he was still waiting for the one club that he really wanted to sign for, and when at last Blackburn, who were already paying his wages, realised that they had a star right under their noses, he had no hesitation.

"I didn't care about the financial side. It was because I supported Blackburn Rovers as a kid, being brought up in Blackburn," he says. "I didn't know anyone at the club involved with the first team at the time, it was basically because I supported them."

By then an Ewood Park season-ticket holder, Derbyshire had begun watching Blackburn from a piece of land the locals call "The Scar" - a hill that rises up behind the CIS Stand and gives the most limited views of the action to those without the money for a ticket. "On the Scar you can only see one net and a quarter of the pitch," Derbyshire says. "When the crowd cheer, you cheer."

Blackburn suggested he turn out for their Under-19s that Saturday. At last his big chance had come, albeit with one problem: Great Harwood Town were due to play that day as well. "Blackburn said to Great Harwood, 'Don't be playing him today', but my manager needed me so I said I'd play in both," he says. "I had 60 minutes for Great Harwood and had to come off straight away. The car was waiting; no time for a shower. And off I went to play for Under-19s at Blackburn against Manchester United. I found it quite difficult but I did OK. I went home and went to bed. The next day they rang me and said, 'Come in and sign a contract'. That was my trial for Blackburn."

He never played for Great Harwood Town again, although he feels for the fans who lost their club - "crowds of 200 to 300, couple of thousand if it was a derby or a nice sunny day." The fire in the changing rooms and clubhouse started when someone drove a car into the adjoining nightclub - "it was called Monroe's, they played the worst music ever" - and there was no insurance. "That football club was a lot of people's lives, it's very sad," Derbyshire says. "I would like someone to sort it out."

As for the talent in the non-league game, Derbyshire believes there are plenty more players waiting to be discovered. "I don't think there are enough people looking," he says. "It is a lot harder for defenders and goalkeepers to get noticed because the strikers get the limelight when they put the ball in the back of the net - at the end of the day that's the name in the newspaper. But there should be a lot more scouts looking because there are a lot of good young footballers out there, good players who could still make a living in the game."

Tomorrow Derbyshire will be up against John Terry, the England captain, a very different prospect to those North West Counties League defenders. When he went to Old Trafford for the first time last month he was impressed and recounts the noise levels with wonder. "At one point I was trying to speak to Benni McCarthy and he was as near to me as you and I couldn't hear him speak, it were that loud," he says. Although for all the progress he has made, Derbyshire has not made it into professional football by being awestruck by the famous names he has come up against.

"I've been taught not to give too much respect to people who think they are better than you. Once you start doing that you'll stop playing and start looking at them. I try not to give anyone too much respect unless they are in my club. Against Rio [Ferdinand], we were head-to-head at one stage. I think he said I dived in the box, it was all handbags. It's gone now. He apologised and we shook hands. It wasn't the greatest result, losing 4-1 but it was a real learning curve."

He has his first goal for the England Under-21s, scored against Italy at the new Wembley, another first for the boy from Blackburn - he had never been to the old stadium as a fan. The FA Cup is the competition for some of football's most unlikely glories and a great fulfiller of dreams. But for Derbyshire his chance in professional football is not just for one afternoon of Cup football, it should last a whole career. Talking to him, you get the impression the path he has taken has made him cherish his opportunity all the more.

"I still want to get higher in my career, do the good things right and, hopefully, make a good living," he says. "I get stopped by fans now in Blackburn town centre, and if someone wants to have a chat then fair enough. At the end of the day I am only playing a sport. I am only human. Things around me have changed. But I haven't changed one bit."

Local heroes: The romance - and heartbreak - of playing for the team you support

CHARLIE GEORGE (Arsenal)

Islington-born, in the days before New Labour moved into the area, George grew up watching the Gunners from the North Bank. Moving from terrace to dressing room he forced his way into the team as a teenager in 1969. Next season Arsenal won the Double, with George scoring crucial goals in the fifth and sixth rounds of the FA Cup before striking an extra-time winner in the final. George left Highbury in 1975 but now works for Arsenal as a match-day host.

ALEX FERGUSON (Rangers)

The Govan-born Manchester United manager used to sneak through the fence to watch his beloved Rangers, but it was not until he was 25 that they signed him from Dunfermline. Ferguson's spell at Ibrox was brief, medalless, and finished unhappily, despite 36 goals in 68 games. He was blamed for their 4-0 1969 Scottish Cup final defeat to Celtic and frozen out, then sold, by manager Davie White. He took his revenge as manager of Aberdeen.

ALAN SHEARER (Newcastle)

The sheet-metalworker's son spent his youth at St James' Park yet like so many Geordie talents was overlooked by his heroes. But when, having won the title at Blackburn, he was offered a choice between returning to Tyneside or signing for Manchester United, he went home. The decision cost him many medals, but won him the the Gallowgate's adoration. It is widely assumed that Glenn Roeder is only filling the manager's chair until Shearer decides to do so.