Jordan Hugill outlines Championship ambitions with Rotherham United and how he intends to repay Millers' faith in him

He has come a long way, as he rightly says, from the Middlesbrough lad from the suburb of Hemlington whose hopes of becoming a professional footballer, let alone an established Championship one, looked a long shot when he was combining work as a barman at the Dickens Inn with playing in the rough, tough Northern League with Marske United.

It was a sobering time, as he was the first to admit. But he refused to give up hope.

The Millers signing, now 30, told The Yorkshire Post: "At one point I was on Jobseekers Allowance. I was at the bottom of the pile.

"I was working behind a bar and just the sheer belief of becoming a footballer was keeping me going.

"I was lucky enough to get there, but I can tell you one thing: a lot of hard work has gone into the process.

"This is my tenth year in professional football. If you'd said to that lad working behind the bar that he was going to have a decade as a pro - it's something I still can't believe to this day. To reach the Premier League twice is amazing.

"I'd have laughed at you if you'd put that in front of me when I first started."

Hugill's journey started in the professional realm at Port Vale. He went onto carve out a successful niche as bustling, in-your-face forward handy on the goalscoring front at Simon Grayson's Preston. A move to the big time with West Ham beckoned.

He did not gleam under the East London lights, but did well enough out west on a loan spell at QPR. He also spent a temporary stint at his beloved Boro; he was a season-ticket holder at the Riverside during the Juninho years.

Norwich was his next abode, albeit with loans at Cardiff and West Brom also thrown in.

In many respects, the Championship is his level and he arrives at a side who are desperate for his goalscoring input, alongside his hustle and bustle, to achieve their cherished hope of Championship survival and avoiding another instant return to League One.

They can rest assured that Hugill will give everything and bit more besides. That's just his make-up.

He already knows a fair bit about proving people wrong and in many respects, Rotherham have chapter and verse on that. It looks like a perfect footballing union.

Hugill continued: "I've been written off my whole life. If you look at my career and how I got into professional football, I should really have never been a pro.

"There are a lot of things about me that have made me who I am and got me to where I am. I'd like to think the club Rotherham, as a club, are similar in attitude and belief to me.

"I've had a bit of a stop-start last two years. I just want to play. That was offered to me here and that was one of the main things in my decision to sign.

"The club has put a lot of trust in me with the deal and the length of the contract that has been given to me. Hopefully I can repay the manager and the club for backing me.

"I'm looking forward to the challenge and to what's to come.

"I spoke to the manager a week or two ago. I had a great conversation with him. I was on the phone with him for 20 minutes to half an hour just chatting about everything really - my life, my career to date, the club's aims and ambitions. It got me going a little bit.

"I'm at a stage in my career now where I need to start thinking about the longer-term stuff. This is what the club offered me and it was something I was really interested in.

"When I retire, I want to be able to look back on my career and say: 'I worked for everything.' I haven't been given anything. I've had to earn every single minute on the pitch, every single goal.

"I'm not comfortable. I don't want to feel comfortable. I'm always pushing for everything. Nothing is given in this life, it has to be earned."

Hugill spies certain similarities between the Millers and Preston, the club where he made his name.

He continued: "At Preston we were hard-working and we were horrible. We were based on being that. I can't imagine a lot of teams enjoyed going to Deepdale when we had the team that we had.

"We've got to make New York Stadium as horrible to come to for teams as we can."