Stephen Dobbie: Wales got talent

Never mind Kris Boyd, who has been banging them in for Nottingham Forest. Forget Robert Snodgrass, the Leeds United forward who was given his first Scotland cap in February. The one who finds himself within a match of following Scotland's Jamie Mackie, the Dorking-born Queens Park Rangers forward, into the promised land is a lad who struggled to make an impact with Rangers, Hibernian and St Johnstone.

Dobbie can laugh about it now, but his big break was a loan spell with Dumbarton four years ago. Now 28, he is shaping up for a showdown with Reading that is worth 90 million to the winners, and an awful lot of personal satisfaction. "I've never doubted my ability," he says. "It was just other things I had to work out. But the recognition I've had in the last year or so has been great.

"It's nice to show people who maybe doubted me when I was in Scotland, people who saw my potential at Rangers before I fell away. It's good to maybe turn their heads a little bit."

Dobbie's is an unlikely story with an unlikely club. Although Swansea were in the top division 28 years ago under John Toshack, they have been to hell and back since, avoiding relegation from the Football League only eight years ago courtesy of a final-day win against Hull City. The previous season, they came within 24 hours of going out of business.

If any Welsh club were going to join a league that likes to think of itself as the best in the world, the smart money was on Cardiff City, who have gone agonisingly close in each of the last three seasons. A year ago, they were beaten in the play-off final by Blackpool, whose substitutes included none other than Dobbie, on loan from his current employers.

In many ways, Dobbie epitomises all that Swansea have achieved these last few years. Although lifted by their move to the Liberty Stadium in 2005, their rise up the rungs of the league ladder has been propelled by nothing so much as commonsense. While their Welsh rivals have offered exorbitant wages to all and sundry, Swansea have employed promising young managers to play attractive football with relatively cheap, under-rated players.

"There is a big difference between the clubs," says Dobbie. "Swansea try to square the books.They don't want to go into debt. Cardiff are bringing in guys like Craig Bellamy, and they've got Michael Chopra. They have big-name players whereas, at Swansea, the gaffer has tried to build a team that doesn't bust the bank. And it seems to be working."

The gaffer is Brendan Rodgers, who has seen something in Dobbie that others haven't. Here, after all, is a player who left Rangers at the age of 20 without a first-team appearance. He made ten starts in 18 months with Hibs, and 15 in a similar period with St Johnstone. Injuries hadn't helped his fitness but, when he found himself on loan to Dumbarton, he knew that something had to be done.

"When I was at Rangers, you had the likes of Tore Andre Flo signing for 12m so it was hard to get anywhere near the first team. And I admit, my career fell away a bit. When I ended up at Dumbarton, some of the players were coming to training straight from work, and their dedication to the game made me think. Luckily I turned myself round. I lost a bit of weight, got my fitness back and started really enjoying my football. I'm so pleased that I did."

Eleven goals in 18 appearances for Dumbarton persuaded Ian McCall to sign him for Queen of the South, which proved to be the turning point in his career. In 18 months at Palmerston, mostly under Gordon Chisholm and Billy Dodds, he scored 54 goals, and helped them into the Scottish Cup final. "Maybe then I worked a bit harder on other parts of my game. Probably one of the biggest things was Billy Dodds coming into training every day, giving me little tips. That probably got me my move to Swansea."

Dobbie has had his ups and downs in Wales. Roberto Martinez signed him two summers ago, only to leave a few weeks later for Wigan Athletic. Hampered by a rib injury, the Scot struggled to impress his new manager, Paulo Sousa, and soon found himself on loan to Blackpool. There, he scored five goals in the last four months of the season, including one in a play-off semi-final against Nottingham Forest, which had Swansea fans questioning Sousa's sanity.

It cannot have been easy for Dobbie, celebrating Blackpool's promotion to the Premier League without knowing where his own future lay. Ian Holloway, the Blackpool manager, wanted to buy him but, when Rodgers replaced Sousa in July, the player agreed to stay in Wales. Rodgers, who was the reserve-team manager at Chelsea when Jose Mourinho was in charge, hasn't always played Dobbie from the start, but there was something of an epiphany in February, when the player's substitute appearance at Middlesbrough turned a 3-1 deficit into a 4-3 win. Dobbie, hitherto regarded only as a goalscorer whose biggest asset was a willingness to shoot on sight, had performed so well in the hole between midfield and attack that he has been playing there ever since. With Nathan Dyer on one side, and Scott Sinclair on the other, his support of Fabio Borini, the team's Italian centre forward, has impressed Rodgers."He has given me licence to roam when we've got the ball, to try and find spaces and link the play. I try to create goals as well as score them. It has given me the confidence to try to express myself. I've played that role a few times before, but it's the defensive side I'm learning now, blocking lines and shutting spaces down. In that respect, the gaffer has added a lot to my game."

Dobbie still knows where the net is though. He has scored four in as many matches, including another semi-final one against Nottingham Forest, which attracted a tweet of praise from Rio Ferdinand. If the parallel with last season continues in the shape of another success at Wembley, the man who crashed Blackpool's party a year ago will be having one of his own this time round. "Having been here for the whole season, it would be really special. And not just for me. There are guys here like Alan Tate and Leon Britton who played in that game against Hull eight years ago. For them to be Premier League players next year would be an amazing feat."

So, too, would it be for Dobbie, who had the prize dangled tantalisingly before him only a year ago. He insists that he was never jealous of Charlie Adam and Stephen Crainey playing in the top flight but, when both were turning out at Old Trafford, and earning international recognition, there must have been days when he wondered if he had missed the boat.

Dobbie does not pretend to be the future of Scottish goalscoring, but with almost no Barclays Premier League strikers available to Craig Levein, he cannot help but dream. "It's always in the back of my mind," he says. "To get even one cap, from where I was four or five years ago, would be fantastic. I just have to concentrate on my club and hope that someone will come along to see the good things that might happen." Tomorrow would be a good time for them to start.