Grant Holt's rise offers heart to any lower-league struggler who still eyes the big time. A trail of clubs, trials, false starts, loans, disenchantment, manual labour jobs and middling success was the tale before he joined Norwich City in July 2009, aged 28. Successive promotions under Paul Lambert took Holt into the Premier League, where his seven goals and solid 6ft frame now have him touted as a potential target man for Fabio Capello's England.

A yeoman centre-forward at his ninth club, Holt is a former tyre fitter who used to motor from Norfolk to Carlisle and back in a Mazda RX-8 to see his family – part of a footballing odyssey that has taken in Workington, Halifax, Australia, Barrow, Singapore, Sheffield Wednesday, Rochdale, Nottingham Forest, Blackpool and Shrewsbury Town. Now, he is the thriving Canaries captain whose goals have helped fire Lambert's team to a dizzying ninth in the Premier League.

"The team is in a position where it needs to be," he says. "Hopefully we can get a few more points and get safe as a soon as possible. We didn't start off too great but we've got belief that we've kept from last year, and we're going in the right direction."

Modestly, he says of the prospect of being scouted by Capello: "If 10 English forwards get injured this week I might get a call-up. I don't think I'll be the first one on anyone's lips. But if he sticks by his rule, if he goes with people on form and I score a few goals in the next few months, you never know. Football's a funny game isn't it?"

His peripatetic career has taught him that. Even he struggles to precisely recall dates. Holt began at Workington after being released by his hometown club at 15. "I left Carlisle United and there was a physio there called Peter Hampton," he says. "I went to my local side and we played against Workington's under-18s and Peter was now the manager. He knew a little bit about us and it worked out well."

Holt's goal-a-game record at Workington prompted a £10,000 move to Halifax Town in October 1999 that lasted two years, featured no league starts and no goals. There were three loan moves, to Sorrento in Perth, Barrow, and Sengkang Marine in Singapore, before he joined the Cumbrian club permanently.

How did Holt end up playing in Perth? "When I was at Halifax the assistant manager, Peter Butler, got sacked," he says. "He went to Australia and was working with a local team and said: 'If you want to have a look come on over.' So I played for Sorrento for a month and thought: 'Well, I either stay here and the football isn't at a standard where I want to be at or I go back and have a gamble.' I came back and went to Barrow."

The first period at the shipyard town's club ended in 2000 with the move to Sengkang Marine, where Holt travelled knowing he had been promised a return to Carlisle when funds were available. How was the standard in the Singapore S-League? "You're looking at the Conference probably. We had a couple of foreigners and a lot of local young lads and it was starting to get off the ground. I was there a couple of months."

Did Holt have work to support himself? "No. I had a flat that came with a gym, a pool, a Jacuzzi. Everything was on site, and we were paid enough to live and eat and enjoy yourself. It was a great time – the language was English and Malayan, so the barrier was quite easy."

But when Carlisle called disappointment ensued. "I flew back, trained for about two weeks and they decided the deal wasn't there," Holt says. "It was a bit of blow as I'd been enjoying my football in Singapore. I went back to Barrow and a few months later I got a move to Sheffield Wednesday, so there was a bit of fate in there."

Before moving to Hillsborough, though, reality had bit. "When I was at Barrow the first time, I never worked. But I returned from Singapore, and Carlisle did what they did, and I thought: 'That's it, I'm going to have to get a job now.' It probably let me enjoy Barrow because all the pressure was off. I was working in some stores and with friends in a factory."

Holt had not worked since his Workington days. "When I was younger I did the tyre fitting," he says. "I was living in Carlisle then, at me mam's. To keep fit while also working it was about getting in as many runs as you can. I'd run round the streets, train with my local team, go for a run at the weekend. In the week I would go to work in the morning – we used to play Tuesdays and Saturdays – and Wednesday, Thursday I'd go for a run after work for a couple of miles."

The lowest point of Holt's career came during his first year at Barrow, in 2001. "I went for a trial at Exeter," he says. "I drove all the way down there, did well in the game, drove back, only to sit in the house the next morning after a 10-hour round trip to see that the manager had got sacked. At that point I thought: 'I've had enough now really, I'm not going to any more trials.'

"But the following February I went in the office one day and the manager, Kenny Lowe, said: 'Somebody wants to take you.' I said: 'I've already told you I've had enough. I'm just happy I'm enjoying my football again.' And he said: 'No you've got to go for this one, it's Sheffield Wednesday.'

"When someone says that to you, you've got to go for it. Thankfully I did. I did well in the trials and got signed up. And it was a good time as well. Although I didn't play much, it gave me that desire to earn a living out of the game again, and there were some fantastic pros who taught me good things."

He joined Chris Turner's Wednesday in March 2003 for a nominal fee and after three goals in 12 league starts left the following January for Rochdale, also for a nominal price. This was "one of the best moves I've made. I was playing week in and week out," he says of his 75 league starts and 34 goals for Steve Parkin. Holt departed on a £300,000 transfer in January 2006 for a difficult two and a half seasons at Nottingham Forest.

Holt scored 20 league goals in 74 starts but "I didn't really get on with the manager," he says of Colin Calderwood, who took over after he joined. There was a brief loan spell at Blackpool, where he did not play, and then the cut-price £170,000 fee paid by Shrewsbury Town in June 2008. This proved a bargain for Paul Simpson when Holt returned 20 strikes in 46 starts. The following summer Bryan Gunn signed him for £400,000. Lambert soon took over and the goals began flowing for Norwich and did not stop. He will hope to add to his tally of 52 goals for the club in Saturday's FA Cup fourth-round tie at West Bromwich Albion. "I'm very lucky that for the last two years I've had a team that creates a chance," he says. "I told them if they do the same for me in the Prem I'll score."

Now there are no more long hours driving home. "I had a Mazda R-X8 and put 5,000 miles on it in a month and a half. I thought: 'That's not going to work.' So I got a Peugeot 307 to bang the miles and I put 45,000 in one year," Holt says. "When we decided to have another baby I moved the family down, and we're all happy in Norwich."

So, too, was last season's final-day draw with Coventry City, which was marked by Holt celebrating promotion his own way. "I wrote on a T-shirt: 'From Unibond Premier to the Premier League.' If someone had said to me when I was knocking around at Barrow I'd be in the Prem scoring goals you'd just laugh. It was an achievement I'd been waiting for for a long time."