Derby County struck gold with £0 Norwich City transfer | OneFootball

Chris Martin's spell at Pride Park proved to be largely successful

Since the founding of the club in 1884, Derby County have had a history of acquiring and developing some extremely talented and clinical centre-forwards.

The Rams are one of the most historic outfits, not just in English football, but across Europe, having been one of the EFL's 12 founding members, so to wear the 'number nine' shirt at Pride Park, or previously the Baseball Ground, comes with huge honour, privilege and responsibility in equal measure.

In recent months, current boss, John Eustace, has certainly had huge success on this particular front despite missing out on a place in the Championship play-offs for 2025/26, with both Carlton Morris and Patrick Agyemang hitting double-figure goal tallies in their respective first seasons in DE24 after joining from Luton Town and Charlotte FC, whilst also suffering injury misfortune at various times too.

Therefore, due to their experience and attributes, supporters in this part of the East Midlands will feel their club is in good hands to build on such foundations when the duo are fit and firing in the future, albeit Agyemang looks unlikely to appear until late 2026.

It would also be a huge achievement for either striker to help guide the club back to the Premier League, where they have not resided since the 2007/08 term, which is, unfortunately, remembered for the accumulation of just 11 points.

That said, Derby did come close a handful of times to ending said exile in the 2010s, even though such shortcomings nearly ended in financial oblivion.

However, one free transfer from Norwich City was at the forefront of those promotion charges.

Derby County hit the jackpot with Chris Martin's free transfer from Norwich City in 2013

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A product of the Canaries' academy setup, Chris Martin was handed his professional debut for the East Anglian side in January 2007 against Wolves at Carrow Road, albeit it took plenty of time for the centre-forward to aclimatise to life in the first-team.

Indeed, the forward's major breakthrough came in a loan spell with Luton Town in 2008/09, after the initial decision to sanction such an agreement from Norwich boss, Glenn Roeder, was met with intense criticism from supporters.

However, with City falling into League One in 2009/10, such circumstances provided the future Scotland international with a springboard, and although he was very rarely afforded Premier League minutes, a tally of 29 goals in 80 appearances was pivotal in the Yellows' run of back-to-back promotions under Paul Lambert.

And, despite a largely underwhelming loan spell at Derby in the second half of the 2012/13 campaign, the Rams agreed a free transfer on an initial two-year contract and largely never looked back.

In his first full season in the East Midlands, Martin netted 25 times in 51 appearances as his new employers went on to suffer the first of three play-off heartbreaks within five years against Queens Park Rangers at Wembley, and averaged a goal every two games the following year as Steve McClaren was sacked after missing out on the play-offs.

The following season, Martin took a while to regain his goalscoring spark, but was still able to net 15 league goals as the Rams were defeated in the play-off semi-finals against Hull City, before his career started to take an unfortunate hit.

Chris Martin eventually struggled to replicate his impressive goalscoring exploits

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Unfortunately for the experienced forward, and Derby, he wouldn't quite live up to the same goalscoring standards during the remainder of his spell at the club, which lasted until 2020 amid a handful of mixed returns in various loan spells.

The following campaign, Martin netted 10 times in 30 appearances for Fulham as they reached the play-off semi-finals under Slavisa Jokanovic, but it would be the last time for six years he would get over the double-figure mark in a single season, doing so again in the 2021/22 campaign with Bristol City.

He was unable to translate such exploits into temporary stints at Reading and Hull City also, whilst the aforementioned 12-goal season was by far his best of three years at Ashton Gate.

After a final Championship swansong with Queens Park Rangers in 2022/23, Martin's career was somewhat revitalised at Bristol Rovers in League One with 16 goals in 38 games, before his final term at the Memorial Stadium ended with an unfortunate knee issue.

As such, it was clearly a career which peaked as a Derby player, even if the 37-year-old couldn't quite make the step-up back into the Premier League with the Rams.