Preston North End’s Joe Garner is a one-man goal festival. Googling his name brings up an impressive selection of his 24 goals last season, not all as memorable as the screamer he scored against Rotherham but many of them highly watchable, as are the celebrations and the Deepdale crowd’s song in his honour.

Off the field the 26-year-old is not such a show-off, indeed he is quite modest about his scoring prowess. “There have been one or two decent strikes, but I am just as happy with the tap-ins,” he says. “If the ball comes back off the goalkeeper and I knock it over the line, it’s still a goal and that’s what I’m there for. Like any striker I’ll take anything that comes along. Scoring a tap-in can be as good a feeling as a 30-yard volley that flies into the top corner.”

Garner is particularly enjoying his prolific spell at Preston since he is playing for the team he supported as a boy. Though born in Blackburn, North End were the club of choice for Garner and his family, and when the club was enjoying its best period in recent memory under David Moyes just over a decade ago the matchday would always involve a visit to the Deepdale Labour Club before watching the game from the Town End. “The atmosphere around half-past two would be pretty raucous, the sort of thing that makes a big impression on a young boy,” he recalls. “As a lad, growing up, I dreamed of emulating people like Ricardo Fuller and Jon Macken.”

Some football dreams do work out, though ending up playing for his boyhood favourites was a far from simple process for Garner. First he was with Blackburn Rovers, whose scouting system picked him up before Preston’s and who could offer Premier League football at the time. Yet despite being good enough to play for England at under-19 level, Garner never made the first team at Ewood Park and had to move on in search of regular selection.

“Mark Hughes was the manager and I just kept missing out,” he explains. “I could see what was in front of me, Blackburn had Roque Santa Cruz, Craig Bellamy and Benni McCarthy to choose from, so I ended up joining Carlisle to get a game, first on loan and then as a permanent move.” That led to a move to Nottingham Forest and then Watford, and by the time Garner joined Preston following seven goals in 16 games back at Carlisle on loan, his old team had dropped down a division to League One.

“Obviously I had kept an eye on their fortunes,” he says. “As a matter of fact I had played at Deepdale a few times by then. On one of my last appearances for Carlisle I had to take a penalty in front of the Town End. All my family were in the stand and I remember looking at them before I took the kick. It was weird, but one of those things that happen. I had a job to do and just had to get on with it.

“I always enjoyed playing at Deepdale but I’m glad to be a home player now rather than a visitor. I had a frustrating first few months last season when the goals dried up for a while, but all of a sudden everything clicked and I ended up with 24 and the team almost got promoted. That was the only disappointing thing about last season, reaching the play-offs but losing at the semi-final stage. We are hoping to do better this time. My memories of Preston as a supporter were of a really good Championship side, and I don’t see why we cannot be that again.”

Thanks to five wins in a row in the league and seven goals already for Garner this season Preston are up among the promotion candidates, and their leading scorer has not given up hope of making and even bigger step up at some point. “Of course I would like to play in the Premier League,” he says. “Any professional footballer would. Whether I would score as many goals at that level is hard to say, but I would love the chance to find out. I have always been able to score goals at each level where I have played.

“People ask me what is the secret but I’m not sure there is one. You just have to stay composed and concentrate on hitting the target. As long as you have a good team behind you the chances will come, and then it is up to you to take them. I think I have got better with experience. I am happy with where I am at the minute, and obviously it helps being a local, but when I was training with the Blackburn first team I think it improved me as a player.

“I didn’t think ‘I’m never going to be this good’ when I was with all those top players. I just knew I was going to have to bide my time.”