Matt Godden is drawing inspiration from Jamie Vardy after leaving Ebbsfleet to have a crack at the Football League.

The 24-year-old, who signed for Stevenage this week, is a year younger than Vardy was when he stepped up from Fleetwood to join Leicester City.

Vardy is now a Premier League champion, in the England squad at the European Championship and on the verge of a £20million move to Arsenal.

Godden said: "He’s helped non-league players massively over the last year or so.

"It was a lot more difficult for non-league players to get picked up by pro clubs. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know but I take a lot of inspiration from what he’s done.

"He was a similar age to me, so if I can replicate half of what he’s done, I’ll be over the moon.

"As much as I’d love to have stayed at Ebbsfleet, the opportunity to play League football again was too hard for me to turn down.

"I feel I’ve still got something to offer in the Football League. I’ve got a statement that I need to make and I back myself.

"Like the guys at Stevenage have said, all they want for me is to continue my form from last year into this and I can’t see why not.

"Once my confidence is high, it stays high, so I’ll be confident going into the first game of the Football League season. If I can get a goal in the first few games, I’ll be well away."

Godden spent five years with Scunthorpe but rejected a new deal with the newly-promoted League 1 club in 2014 and chose to play non-league football closer to home.

He was Fleet’s top scorer in 2014-15 and netted 30 times in all competitions last season, leaving him 18th on the club’s all-time list with 47 goals from 94 appearances.

Godden said: "Me asking the manager permission to leave (Scunthorpe) after they offered me a contract was a big decision but I felt it was right that I dropped down, came towards home and rejuvenated myself to try to push on and build myself back up.

"I worked my socks off away from the pitch in the gym, tried to get myself in perfect shape and it’s rewarded me this year on the pitch.

"From when I dropped out of the Football League, the aim has always been to build myself back up. I want to establish myself in the Football League and prove I can score a lot of goals."

Read the full interview in the Gravesend Messenger.