Dartford FC academy manager Ben Greenhalgh says first-team boss Alan Dowson is up to speed on club's youngsters

Dartford manager Alan Dowson is already up to speed with the club’s academy players.

The Darts boss watches games weekly and when he wanted to bring youngsters into the first-team environment last week, he knew exactly who he wanted.

There were six current academy players involved in last week’s London Senior Cup win over Tooting & Mitcham with a further three players who came through the system the previous season.

Academy manager Ben Greenhalgh explained: “I speak to Dowse three times a week, whether it’s on the phone or at the club.

“We’ll be constantly talking about players, other players, first-team stuff. To have that relationship between academy manager and first-team manager is brilliant. Obviously, I know that we’re together, we’re in agreement with how things are going on.

“The biggest thing for the boys is not just knowing that opportunity is there, but knowing Dowse. He comes to every Academy game, he’ll be there every day and it’s not a case now of us having to push players onto the first team.

“Now it’s me, Tony Burman and Dowse talking about what player can go through, what player we might need to sign up on forms.

“It’s not Dowse saying ‘Ben, what player can I have?’, it’s Dowse saying ‘Ben, can I have this player’. That’s what worked really well last week. He rang me up and asked for six players. It wasn’t a case of give me any six, he named the six players.

“There’s not that many managers at any club that will be that knowledgeable about their academy so that was brilliant."

Of those six academy players, two were in the starting XI, while the likes of Sam Odaudu and Marvin Herschel have already established themselves in the first team having been given their opportunity by Dowson.

“The biggest thing is