IT IS hard to believe Marvin Emnes joined Middlesbrough more than three years ago. Up until January, first team appearances had been sparse and even now very little is known about him.

What was known was that Boro had paid £3.2m when they agreed a deal with Sparta Rotterdam in July 2008 and it did not take him long to disappear out of sight under both the man who signed him, Gareth Southgate, and his successor, Gordon Strachan.

The first eight weeks of this season, his fourth in English football, have propelled him to new heights in his career and it is time for football fans to understand a bit more about the young man from Holland that has a gift for football.

After a blistering start to the new campaign that led to him receiving the August player of the month award for the Championship and heralded eight goals, he is suddenly the man supporters hope leads the charge back to the Premier League.

It has not always been easy for him, though. There have been a number of times when he thought his career on Teesside was over, only to be given a new lease of life and a new hunger to succeed under the guidance of his third Boro boss , Tony Mowbray.

Throughout the difficult times he has always had two things close to him: his family and his faith. He will never forget either and beneath his quiet, sometimes shy exterior, Emnes is someone intent on delivering as much for his family as for himself.

He was born in Rotterdam, where his Surinamese parents moved when they were young in search of a better lifestyle.

Throughout his time on Teesside, he has often had his mum, Cynthia, close by to help him through periods when he felt his decision to turn down the club he supported as a boy, Ajax, for the English Premier League may have been a bad one.

Yet he emerged through the other side, despite times under Strachan when he wondered what direction his career would head next. Last summer he had the opportunity to join Fortuna Dusseldorf and then months later he went to Swansea on loan.

"I nearly signed for Dusseldorf, where I had been training without themanager's say during the summer break, " said Emnes. "Then Gordon Strachan sent me a letter to tell me I had to go back to the first day's training.

"So I went back to the first day's training with Middlesbrough and I had to train with the reserves. That was the problem.When I got the letter I just thought 'oh man'. I had to come back because I had a contract.

"He said 'If you want to play for this team then you will have to work harder and you are not a player for the English Championship or the Premier League'. I then asked if I could go on loan because I was not good enough, he said 'you have to stay here'. I didn't understand that."

That was the most difficult period of Emnes' time at Boro, with his career effectively at a standstill. He would regularly head home after training to pray for brighter times and to the comfort of his family.

The 23-year-old, a strong Catholic, said: "My faith is important to me. I pray every morning when I get up. Every day I thank God I am here again and wake up every morning hoping that everything goes well for my family and me.

"When things were hard for me here, it helped me. Every day I would ask God why things were so difficult and what did I have to do to change things and my faith kept me going."

His beliefs played a crucial role in his turnaround, but so did his family. He has already put plans in place to repay them.

"I have bought a piece of land in Suriname to build a house on for my mother, " he said. "My mum has always wanted to return to the area where she was brought up, so she is waiting for that to happen. It is just a field at the moment. I want to give her, her dream house one day."

Throughout his childhood his parents would be on his back trying to get him to stick in to his schoolwork. He never did. All he wanted was to play football.

"I started when I was five on the streets, " he said. "It was always in my mind that I wanted to play football. I had problems every day. My parents toldme when I was 18 to go for it, but before that they always said that I had to concentrate on school. When I was at school, I wasn't really there."

After leaving his junior club Xerxes, Emnes spent eight years from the age of ten at Sparta Rotterdam before Middlesbrough signed him in 2008 from under the noses of Ajax.

There was a sense before his stint at Swansea that he was not ready and he was destined to be on the periphery of the first-team. As he chatted in the boot room at the club's Rockliffe Park training HQ, though, he had his eye back on bigger things.

It may be too early to start to talk him up for a full senior call-up to the Holland squad, but having represented the Dutch from Under-17s - who hehelped to third in the 2005 World Championships - up to the Under-21s, he knows people in his homeland will be tracking his progress.

Playing in the Premier League would help his cause.

He said: "I never doubted myself and the Swansea move, the loan last season, was great for me.

"It was 80 per cent that I would join Swansea even then. I am glad I stayed now, even though Swansea are in the Premier League, we will be there soon."