The story of Britt Assombalonga’s career is the sort of tale that must enter the heads of many young footballers up and down the country.

Playing football for fun while also studying, getting a chance with your local club and then going on to play more than 400 professional games, being the record signing for three different clubs and ending up back where the dream became reality.

He’s now 30 but Assombalonga was just 17 when he was spotted by the Hornets playing in their community scheme, and two years older when he made his first-team debut against Coventry City in March 2012.

Should he score now he’s returned, the striker will instantly set the Watford record for the longest period between making your debut and scoring your first goal.

It’ll be 3,976 days if he does it against Reading on Saturday – Tommy Harris currently holds the record at 3,846 days, but his career was interrupted by World War II. Lloyd Doyley took 2,994 days by way of comparison, although he was at Vicarage Road for that entire time.

However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Assombalonga is back at Watford and proud to tell the story of how his footballing career started.

“I was in the centre of excellence scheme with the Watford Trust, which combines college and football, and that was in Borehamwood,” he said.

“We used to play games on Wednesdays, and Chris Andrews who ran the centre told me that the football club wanted to have me in for a trial.

“It was crazy. I wasn’t expecting it, I was just enjoying my football. I was studying sports science so I would still have been involved in football probably.

“But I was playing football, enjoying it, and then the opportunity came my way and I took it.”

Sadly, he was to make only four first-team appearances at Vicarage Road in his first spell before he moved on.

“Coming through like I did at Watford, I wanted to stay here. I didn’t live far away and I’d grown up nearby,” he said.

“But different opportunities arise and you play for different managers. Things change, and looking back it all worked out well for me.

“It brought me out of my shell when I left Watford.”

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Before he departed permanently, Assombalonga attracted attention with some prolific goalscoring during three loan spells at Wealdstone (six goals in 11 outings), Braintree (five goals in five games) and Southend United (15 goals in 43 appearances).

“As a striker you pride yourself on goals. Going away on loan and scoring goals was good for me,” he smiled.

“When I was at Wealdstone I was still able to train with the first team at Watford. That helped with my fitness because Wealdstone were only training a couple of nights a week.

“I was with Connor Smith at Wealdstone. We both went there together, and that helped. The loans were a perfect start to my career.”

He left Watford in July 2013, and those goals on loan tempted Peterborough to pay £1.25m for his services, breaking their record fee (Watford also inserted a 50% sell-on clause).

“When you’re young and you see the figures, you think flipping hell! To be in that position I was obviously a mixture of nerves and excitement,” he recalled.

“I was just relishing the challenge and enjoying the chance to play.

“That time at Peterborough was fantastic and I loved every moment of it. I really grew under Darren Ferguson, and he really taught me a lot. I’ve always been thankful to him.”

Assombalonga banged in 33 goals in 58 games for Posh, and helped them to win the Football League Trophy, but almost exactly a year after moving to London Road he was off to Nottingham Forest.

They broke their transfer record to sign him, paying what was believed to be £5m to top the £4.5m they had previously spent on Dutch international Pierre van Hooijdonk.

“Going to Forest was a chance to go back to the Championship and play regularly there,” he said.

“I remember speaking to the manager and then talking to family and friends, and they were saying to me I should go for it.

“It was my chance to go back to the Championship and do something.

“I’d had a trial at Forest when I was young and I didn’t get in, so that made it a perfect opportunity to go back and prove myself there and in the Championship.”

The goals flowed again at the City Ground, and Assombalonga hit the net 30 times in 69 appearances, and it might have been a lot more but for losing nearly a whole season to serious knee injury.

In July 2017 he was on the move again, this time to Middlesbrough and for another record fee: Boro paid Forest £15m. Was the fee an added pressure?

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“I’d done it once and dealt with it. Then when you do it twice and a third time, you just get on with it,” he said.

“I’d grown up and I really didn’t think about the fees or let it put pressure on me.

“I was a man and a regular player, and I just went into the clubs knowing what I had to do.”

His four years at the Riverside saw him score 47 times in 161 games, but he was told he could leave at the end of the 2021/21 season by Neil Warnock.

“That was disappointing, yeah,” he conceded.

“As a player you always think there is more you can do, and more you want to achieve.

“But things change. Garry Monk got the sack, then Tony Pulis came in and he got the sack. After that Jonathan Woodgate took over, and he got the sack too.

“By the time Neil Warnock came in there had been a lot of changes of manager. He didn’t renew my contract but that’s the way things go.

“I enjoyed my time at Middlesbrough, and the people at the club were amazing.”

In July 2021 Assombalonga upped sticks and moved to Turkey, joining newly-promoted Super Lig side Adana Demirspor. He had scored 18 in 53 games when the club agreed to cancel his contract to enable him to move back to Watford.

“Going to Turkey was a chance to try a whole different experience,” he said.

“It was a good opportunity to do something new, not just for me but for my family as well. It let the kids experience something different, and I thought that was important.”

His career record of 160 goals in 415 club games speaks highly of is ability to hit the net, and when you ask Assombalonga about the thrill of doing that, his eyes light up.

“As a striker, happiness is scoring a goal,” he said.

“Any striker will tell you that. It just changes the flow of the blood through your body. The dynamics of how you play and how a game goes can be changed by scoring a goal.

“You score a goal in the first minute and it totally changes everything about that game.”

That first Watford goal would set the record, but the striker said he is back at Watford to ideally offer more than goals.

“I’m here to help the team in any way I can. I left Watford as a boy, and I came back as a man!

“It’s crazy that I was one of the youngest players when I left, and now I’m one of the older ones. But I still feel young and I have a lot to give, and I want to give it.

“If my experience and my take on stuff helps on and off the pitch, then that’s great.

“I just want to do everything I can to get this club back to the Premier League, because they gave me the chance at the very start.”