Herbert scored twice for Northampton last season

By Ryan Percival BBC Radio Northampton Blast Reporter

This time last year, Courtney Herbert would have been sitting at an office desk.

He was working nine-till-five, playing football in his spare time for local side Long Buckby, who ply their trade in the United Counties League, six levels below the Football League.

Fast forward 12 months, and Herbert is now gearing up for his first full season as a professional footballer with Northampton Town.

Last September, the 21-year-old was offered a two-week trial by the Cobblers, and after impressing in reserve games, he put pen-to-paper on a two-year deal.

Herbert told BBC Radio Northampton: "I thought it was a wind-up when I got the phone call saying that the Cobblers wanted me to go on trial. But I knew I had to get my head down and focus."

Immediately after signing the contract, Herbert proved his worth, netting two outstanding goals against Rotherham and Bury.

However, a spell of injuries left the striker out of action for a month and the harsh realities of top-level football hit home.

After overcoming the injury, Herbert struggled to find the form that he had possessed during his first weeks at the club, which forced him to limited appearances at the back-end of last season.

If we can get some good coaching into him and he takes everything on board, he will progress; hopefully he's got a decent future Manager Ian Sampson

With the striker now settled into the club and training hard, he is hoping for a fresh start this time around.

"I'm more realistic. It's just like another job. All you have to do is work hard and you will get your rewards."

And Herbert says he knows what he has to do during pre-season to improve and properly adapt to the professional game.

"It's been difficult being my first pre-season but I'm getting used to it. All the lads are helping me along and I think I'm doing well. I have been scoring a few goals in training so hopefully I can take them into games.

"My fitness wasn't great, I'm not afraid to admit that but it's getting better working with Glen (Thurgood), Ian (Sampson) and Malcolm (Crosby). They're getting me fitter, so hopefully I can last longer in games."

So how hard is it for a normal 21-year-old to go from playing football once or twice a week as an amateur, to being a professional footballer?

606: DEBATE Do you think Courtney Herbert deserves more first team football in 2010/11? JonW_BBC_Northants

Glenn Botterill, who now manages Herbert's former side Long Buckby, had a lot of praise for the youngster, after a recent friendly encounter with the Cobblers.

And he believes the striker can make an impact this season with his blistering pace.

"Courtney has got the special gift of raw pace," Botterill told BBC Radio Northampton. "And raw pace is hard to play against at any level, whether it's in the county leagues or in professional football.

"Northampton have a number of quality strikers so he will need to up his game, but if he works hard and has a really good go at it, he could be very successful."

Northampton boss Ian Sampson is hoping that the pre-season campaign will allow Herbert to achieve his full potential and re-pay the faith shown in him when he brought him to the club.

"He is going to get a pre-season that he has probably never done in his life. Hopefully that will benefit him," Sampson said.

"He came into the club and he was fantastic for the first three weeks, he looked like someone who was hungry showing genuine pace.

"He scored a couple of goals that arguably got me this job. But then he got injured and unfortunately his form tailed off, perhaps because of being new to the game.

"But hopefully this pre-season will benefit him.

"It's down to him at the end of the day, if we can get some good coaching into him and he takes everything on board, he will progress. Hopefully he's got a decent future."

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