Kieron Agbebi added to the professional ranks at League 2 Gillingham following youth football at Sheppey and Dover

Young forward Kieron Agbebi is a summer recruit at Gillingham made possible by the introduction of a new B team.

The Gills now have the facility to hang onto more of their young players and hand those starring locally a chance to make it too. Agbebi has joined after playing youth football at Dover and Sheppey.

Gillingham head of recruitment Andy Hessenthaler gave Agbebi a taste of first-team football while manager at Dover, promoting him up from the junior ranks to be around his team. The forward was part of Whites’ under-19 side that clinched the National League South title last season.

The Gills signed right-back Ike Orji from Chatham earlier this year and he remains on their books this season together with a small group of teenagers hoping to bridge that gap between youth and senior football.

First team boss Neil Harris said: “We want to look at young talent that maybe we’ve missed over the years and have not been able to bring into the academy, for whatever reason.

“It has been well publicised and documented by a lot of people that we have missed a lot of players and we are now trying to make up for lost time.

“Whether we get them at 14, 15 or 16, we can look at also getting them slightly older now that we have got a B team set up and running.

“It’s giving people an opportunity and we just don’t know. We look for attributes, player profile, to what we want and see the level they are playing at.

“If they are excelling at that level and we think they can come here with their attributes to have a chance of progressing with us to first team football one day then we will try and take them.

“Kieron comes into that, a bit like Ike last year.

“There are no guarantees for these players that they will make it to first team