MATT Derbyshire feels like he's living a dream after a meteoric rise that has taken him from Blackburn Rovers' Football in the Community Office to a place in Mark Hughes' first team.

Four years ago, the precocious young striker was coaching five and six year olds as part of his work with Rovers' Football in the Community team.

Now, the 20-year-old is fantasising about following in the footsteps of his heroes, Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton, after being handed his first senior start in Rovers' 1-0 UEFA Cup win over AS Nancy on Wednesday night.

It's a remarkable rags to riches story that wouldn't look out of place on the pages of Roy of the Rovers'.

But Derbyshire, a life-long Blackburn fan, hopes this is the start, and not the pinnacle, of a long and successful career with his home-town team.

The unassuming forward, who was playing Non-League football with Great Harwood before Rovers plucked him from obscurity, said: "I enjoyed my time at Great Harwood, but getting a move to Blackburn was a dream come true for me.

"I think every child's dream is to play for their home town club, but I never thought I'd actually achieve it.

"Now I have, I have to keep pinching myself. But I want to get in a position where I'm playing all the time."

Derbyshire always dreamed of making a career for himself in football, so when he left school at the age of 16, he was delighted to secure a coaching job with Rovers' Football in the Community team.

He combined that with playing part-time for Harwood, but never in his wildest fantasies did he ever think he would one day find himself playing in the Premiership for his childhood heroes.

"I worked in the Community office for a couple of years when I finished school," said Derbyshire.

"I was still playing for Great Harwood at the time as well, and I enjoyed it.

"I thought to myself if I can make it at Great Harwood and play semi-professionally then I've done very well.

"But I've managed to better myself by coming to Blackburn, and I feel like I'm living a dream."

A prodigious scorer at Non-League level, it was only a matter of time before Derbyshire began attracting interest from a number of Premier League clubs.

However, there was only ever one team he wanted to play for and, from the moment Rovers' Academy director Bobby Downes registered his interest, Derbyshire jumped at the chance.

"As soon as I found out Blackburn were interested in me, I always knew I wanted to come here ahead of any other team.

"I also spoke to Manchester United, Everton, Manchester City and Burnley, but Rovers were always my first choice.

"I've supported the club since I was a kid and my heroes were Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton. I had their posters on my wall.

"When we played against Newcastle last season, I asked one of the lads to get Shearer's shirt for me, and it was superb to get that."

An injury crisis, which robbed Mark Hughes of Franny Jeffers and Jason Roberts, led to Derbyshire getting his big chance against Newcastle United last Saturday, and after a lively cameo as a second half substitute, he then got the nod to start Wednesday night's game against Nancy, when he also enhanced his reputation.

Now Derbyshire is hungry to taste more.

"It was superb to make my full debut the other night. I got told earlier in the day and it felt brilliant," said the striker, who's hoping to make the bench against Reading tomorrow.

"It was a difficult game but hopefully the manager has now seen what I can do, and maybe he'll give me a few more chances during the course of the season."

Hughes certainly has high hopes for a player who has come on in leaps and bounds since a hugely successful loan spell with Wrexham last season, for whom he scored 10 goals in 16 appearances.

"He's developing as we'd want him to," said Hughes.

"He went out to Wrexham on loan last season, did very well and scored lots of goals, and it was quite obvious that he was better than the level we pitched him in at.

"I was thinking of trying to get him into a Championship team this year, but, in the end, I felt he'd progress just as well training day in, day out with the players that we have here.

"He's still a young man so sometimes he will make the wrong decisions because he doesn't know the game as well as more senior players. But that comes with time.

"The good thing is he's a willing worker, he's a got a great attitude, which is always a good trait to have when you're a young player, and I'm pleased for him because he's worked extremely hard to get to the level he has."