Glenn Moore: Hitzlsperger fires himself into hearts of Holte End

Unsung young German midfielder plucked from reserves to avoid free transfer becomes Premiership success story

The strains of Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody" had been drifting for some time from the Aston Villa training ground lounge when Thomas Hitzlsperger emerged from the staff's seasonal lunch on Thursday, anything but mince pie-eyed, to explain how he came to be terrorising goalkeepers.

The 20-year-old German is the latest Scrabble hand and a half on the Premiership board announcing himself with a series of 25-yard spectaculars. He is also another example of the bizarrely complex world of the modern game. Groomed in Munich, spotted in New Zealand and honed in Chesterfield, he is the Holte End's new darling but, had it not been for a club director's fortuitous visit to a reserve match, he would have been just a footnote in a Rothmans yearbook.

That director was Graham Taylor, who watched Villa's stiffs the night before he took charge of the first team in the wake of John Gregory's exit for Derby. Taylor told me: "There was this blond German boy playing with a range of passing off his left foot and I didn't know who he was. I made enquiries and found there was a clause in his contract where he had to make 10 appearances before the end of last season or he was a free transfer."

At that stage Hitzlsperger had played once, more than a year previously. Taylor added: "We had 13 games left. I put him straight into the first team squad. I soon thought: 'No, we cannot allow this boy to have a free transfer'. We kept him in and he did well."

Which explains how Hitzlsperger was given his chance in the claret-and-blue, but not how he found his way from Bavaria to Birmingham. Seated in a quiet corner, by an artificial Christmas tree which looks like it has been man-marked by Olof Mellberg, Hitzlsperger explains.

"I went to the Under-17 World Cup [in New Zealand in November 1999] with Germany. I met some people there. They arranged a trial. I had a week here and it went well. I thought it would be a good move. You progress as a young player if you go abroad."

It is a mature view, especially from someone who was born and bred in Munich and had been with Bayern from the age of seven. He added: "I had played for their teams up to Under-19 but not in the reserves or the first team. At Bayern it is very difficult for a young player to get into the first team. They said they wanted to keep me but over the 11 years I was there I didn't see many players coming through. I wanted to play in a top league so Villa was the ideal offer. I didn't know much about Villa but knew the Premiership was a good league, similar to the Bundesliga."

It seems a shrewd move. Of his five Bayern Munich team-mates in that German Under-17 squad only the midfielder Markus Feulner has made it into the first team, and he is very much a fringe player.

Having learned English for five years Hitzlsperger could communicate, but admitted he found it difficult to settle. The situation was helped when his girlfriend came over to study at Aston University. His large family (five brothers, one sister) also take full advantage of the direct flight connection between Munich and Birmingham. Not that this has stopped Hitzlsperger picking up traces of a Brummie accent.

Gradually Hitzlsperger established himself in the reserves but he still needed toughening up. So Gregory sent him to Chesterfield, then struggling in the Second Division. "It was very good experience," he said. "Quite tough. It is a different kind of football. In the Premiership the quality of players means the technique is brilliant but there is a physical side as well and I developed that at Chesterfield. They haven't much money so the facilities are different but they were very nice to me."

He came back a year ago but the first team remained out of reach. Then Taylor went to watch the reserves. Not that it has all gone as sweetly as his left-foot pile-drivers. Taylor added: "When he came back this season we were looking forward to him carrying on where he left off but it was soon apparent something was wrong. I took him to one side because I was going to have to leave him out and I said: 'What is it?' He then admitted – and I think he's learned from this – he'd had a stomach strain but he'd not said anything because he didn't want to lose his place.

"That was six weeks out. When he came back into the side, along with Ian Taylor, it coincided with our surge in results and he's got better with every game. There's a lot more to come from him. Everybody talks about his shooting but his range of passing is very good, he's composed on the ball, he has a good German mentality to work. He has great potential to be a very good player."

His progress has not gone unnoticed. Villa turned away a string of media enquiries this week, from England and Germany. After talking to the Independent he has a date with On the Ball. None of this appears to have turned his head. He spends his free time quietly with his girlfriend in Sutton Coldfield "reading magazines and walking the dog".

Today he plays at Stamford Bridge for a Villa side who want to mark their improvement with a first away win. In the future he could be playing in the 2006 World Cup. That is the view from Germany, supported by Hitzlsperger captaining the Under-21s last month. The player simply said: "That's too far away to think about."

By then he may be in the Bundesliga. He confessed he would probably go back at some stage. But those fans who prompted his midweek goal against Liverpool ("I didn't intend to score but as soon as I got the ball the Holte End were shouting: 'Shoot'!") need not worry just yet. The man they call "The Hammer" added: "I'm enjoying it here. There's no reason to go anywhere."