Gifton Noel-Williams. It’s a tricky name for a Spaniard. For commentators, Gifton becomes “Heef-ton”. “Noel” they can manage, because it’s like Papa Noel – Father Christmas – and as for Williams, well, the crowds at Real Murcia have found Williams a name worth shouting, even imploring.

“Weeeel-yams” they chant when they tire for a goal. It will be a cry heard next year in La Liga. After David Beckham, English interest remains in Spain’s top flight. It is preserved with Noel-Williams, a 27-year-old striker who has spent the vast majority of his career in the Championship with a lone Premiership start for Watford in 1999. He joined Real Murcia late in the January transfer window from Burnley. The fee was nominal, about £50,000, but the idea now looks touched by Midas. Going into Murcia's match yesterday against Vecindario in the Canary Islands, Noel Williams had scored four goals in just over 200 minutes for his new employer. In his time there, Murcia have achieved promotion to the Spanish Primera Liga, and a cult of popularity for their English centre-forward has developed.

“The fans do seem to have taken to me,” he says. “Scoring on my home debut probably helped.” He scored within three minutes of taking to the pitch in a competitive match at Murcia’s Nueva Condomina arena. One match later, Murcia were up. He seemed charmed.

So far, this is a gratifying success story of an English footballer abroad. Noel-Williams has earned it. His had been a career of intoxicating leaps and mortifying setbacks. At 15, still a schoolboy in north London, he was a prodigy, attached to an Arsenal youth system that included his friend Ashley Cole. He made his senior professional debut at 16, for Watford. He was leading the line for them at 18. However, due to make his England under21 debut in February 1999, a tackle by Sunderland’s Paul Butler 10 days earlier left his cruciate ligament requiring surgery. He played in just three games for Watford in the Premiership the following season, two as a substitute. Injuries afterwards left him, he acknowledges, perceived as damaged goods, or at least vulnerable around the knees.

“That one injury turned my world upside down,” he remembers. He found his earlier fame, the transfer links with big clubs, had gone. “That’s life, and though I have had steady years at Stoke City and Burnley without major injury and I’m in no pain, I’m running and training normally, the rumours still go around now, ‘Gifton, he’s got bad knees’. I was pleased when I came here that I had a thorough medical, x-rays, whole-body scans, all my joints, and they could see nothing wrong. That’s life. Bad rumours start and people in England were scared to take what they thought was a risk.”

That said, the Stoke and Burnley years had been only a hesitant recommendation for Murcia. Noel-Williams scored in about one in four matches for Stoke after leaving Watford in 2003, fewer for Burnley in a season and a half after that. But Murcia, an ambitious club who were last in the Primera Liga in 2004 and have constructed a fine modern arena since, had been interested for a while. “They came for me a couple of years ago,” says Noel-Williams. “I went to Burnley instead. I guess they continued watching my progress, and the opportunity came up again in January. I wasn’t going to say no a second time.” It was an unusual transfer. Murcia have several overseas players, but most are South American. Noel-Williams became their first Englishman since the 1920s. La Verdad, the leading Murcia newspaper, decided the club had signed “a tank”, all height and muscle. They initially doubted he was needed. “They thought I’d be there to come on and use my elbows,” he reckons. “They now see I work hard, I’m big and strong but I can play a bit too.”

Before joining, Noel-Williams had looked at the Spanish second division table and thought: “Yeah, this a great opportunity to be playing in the top level in La Liga. If they’d been 17th or 18th it could have gone pear-shaped. Then when I got here, starting on the bench, I sat watching the other strikers score, so I could hardly blame the manager for not putting me in the starting lineup for a bit. The only thing I could do was score as well, and luckily enough I did.” And he kept scoring, his most recent a particularly satisfying away goal at Malaga, a ground where, being black, he received the customary welcome from a section of their notorious spectators: sustained racist abuse. For Noel-Williams it was a first, but he had been prewarned. “The monkey chants? You take it with a pinch of salt, but Malaga was the first time I’d heard it here. You feel sorry for them.”

Noel-Williams followed his goal at Malaga, a well-worked volley, with a chest-thrust-out march towards his taunters. “I just thought, ‘You’ve been giving me stick all game, so here you go’.” He was promptly booked for extending the postgoal rituals.

In almost everything else, Noel-Williams likes Spain. He wants to stay and has a year left on his contract and has found a house close to Murcia’s stadium. “I’m 27, these are supposed to be your best years as a footballer,” he says. “I can’t wait for next season.”

Englishmen in Spain’s La Liga since 2000

- Since 2000, English players have experienced contrasting fortunes in Spain. Steve McManaman won two European Cups, while Stan Collymore left Oviedo after just three games

Vinny Samways (Las Palmas, 1997-2002, Sevilla 2002-03) 193 Liga games, 6 goals, one Div 2 promotion

Mark Draper (Rayo Vallecano, 1999-2000) 4 Liga games, 1 goal

Steve McManaman (Real Madrid, 1999-2003) 94 Liga games, 8 goals, 2 Liga titles, 2 Champions League wins

Stan Collymore (Real Oviedo, 2000-2001) 3 Liga matches

David Beckham (Real Madrid 2003-07) 114 Liga games, 13 goals*

Michael Owen (Real Madrid 2004-05) 36 Liga appearances, 13 goals

Jonathan Woodgate (Real Madrid 2004-06) 9 Liga appearances

Gifton Noel-Williams (Real Murcia 2007- ) 6 Liga games, 4 goals*, 1 Div 2 promotion *excluding last night’s matches