Darren Huckerby will be the first to applaud striker Grant Holt when he overtakes his Norwich City career goal tally, insisting: “He deserves it.”

Holt’s second-minute penalty in the 3-1 Championship win over Bristol City on Monday took him to 48 senior goals since joining the Canaries, the same total on which Huckerby, another great fans’ favourite, finished his Carrow Road days in 2008.

The City skipper is also on course for the second fastest half-century in club history if he manages to score twice more before the end of the season. Holt’s 48 goals for Norwich have come in 83 first team appearances. The fastest 50 achieved in Canary colours was back in the 1950s, when Ralph Hunt took just 79 games to reach his half-century.

Only three other players have managed 50 goals in fewer than 100 games – Ted MacDougall took 94 matches and Ron Davies and Roy Hollis needed 95.

Huckerby is hoping Holt, who has scored 18 times this season in all competitions, will pass his total in Saturday’s Championship game at Hull.

“It’s not just great for him, it’s great for Norwich City,” he said. “Records are meant to be broken. Holty’s game is not just about goals and what he has achieved is down to his hard work throughout his career, not just since he came to Norwich.

“He’s done it the hard way and his workrate is tremendous and that’s great credit to him and Norwich City. He works as hard as he can every game – it doesn’t matter how the game is going.”

Huckerby’s 48 goals, playing mostly in a wide attacking role, came in 203 games for the Canaries. Neither he nor Holt have had the benefit of many penalties in their respective totals, Huckerby scoring six spot-kicks and Holt just three so far – including one in each of the last two games.

“Goals were never a massive part of my game although I scored a few. I played on the left wing for most of my Norwich career and it would have been lovely to get to 50 goals but I was just short of it,” said Huckerby.

“It was my job to get the ball through to Robert Earnshaw or Dean Ashton or whoever, but as a centre-forward it’s a big part of Holty’s job to score goals and he has done that brilliantly and taken his chances and I hope he will continue to do that throughout his Norwich career.”

As for the bigger picture, 34-year-old Huckerby is delighted to see Paul Lambert’s Canaries in second place in the Championship with nine games to go.

“Queens Park Rangers may be a bit too far ahead, but it’s all about getting promoted and if they did that this year it would be a massive, massive achievement,” he said.