Manager Viewpoint - Dartford FC boss Tony Burman

(Image: (c) C White-Griffiths/SportShotz.co.uk)

It is a challenge for any manager to get his side to compete; from grassroots, all the way up to the Premier League. But there is a particularly tricky gap to bridge in non-league football where part-time meets professional.

Dartford FC made the leap from Conference South into the Premier at the end of the 2011/12 season after beating local rivals – and now league rivals for the coming season – Welling United in a sun soaked play-off for the second promotion spot.

Remaining a semi-professional outfit in what is a largely full-time league; very few people believed The Darts would be able to keep up with the likes of Luton Town, Wrexham and Co.

It has been manager Tony Burman who has done his utmost to move his side onwards and upwards, with the club’s interests and success very firmly at heart. Overseeing a resurgence following a move “Back to the Borough” in 2007, an impressive new ground in the town it belongs has made his job that bit easier.

As a player, Burman was bought by Dartford from Charlton Athletic in 1978 for £2,000, playing for the club for a decade. After spells with Leytonstone & Ilford (having moved there with manager John Still, now Luton boss), Bromley and Erith & Belvedere as player/coach, he came away from football.

Dartford manager at the time Bob Makin asked Burman to come back to do some coaching, but also ended up playing. This coincided with the club being sold in 1992.

With the club dropping out of the Southern League, he was asked by the directors at the time to become manager of the U18s, a year before the club was elected back into the Kent League. After winning promotion back to the Southern League and securing safety from relegation, he again moved away from football a year later.

In 2005/6 Burman returned to the club as a director, had interviewed candidates for the manager’s job but instead took the job himself a year before Princes Park opened its doors.

Three promotions later and an 8^th place finish in the top division of non-league, Dartford were confirmed as the best part-time team in the country at the end of the 2012/13 season.

I asked him what he thought was behind this success, what challenges he faced as manager and what he thinks is possible for the club in the future…

The Darts had a very successful first season in the Conference Premier – did you ever think it would be possible to finish as high as you have?

We were favourites for relegation if you had read the non-league paper, along with a few others. Teams may have been turning up thinking it was three points safely tucked away maybe, I don’t know.

Things went against us a little bit in the first three games of the season and were a little bit unfortunate. We knew that we had played well and lost. With some good fortune we beat Kidderminster on the Saturday (25^th August 2012), then on the Monday when we went to Cambridge we realised that it wasn’t an FA Cup tie – it was a league game. It was probably our first experience of playing at a big ground in front of a big crowd. Winning the game probably marked our explosion onto the league.

The next games seemed to go with us – I think it was a deflected shot from Nathan Collier in the last minute and it’s gone in (against Cambridge United) and that’s won the game for us. That’s how football changes so much, and I think all of sudden belief came into is as well. It didn’t matter who we were playing, and we had some big games in the period following up. We went to Luton and Grimsby and had really fantastic support, there’s no other way to describe it, and we got great results.

I think it started at Wrexham (22^nd September) when we went there and got a draw, but we thoroughly deserved the draw. The support there was brilliant again and I think it just snowballed from that moment onwards. I think that was the first time as well that the players got their phones out and before the game started taking photos of the stands!

It was where we wanted to be; we gave it our all and we had nothing to lose. It’s what our attitude was, it continued, and it wasn’t long before people were showing us a lot of respect rather than thinking they were just going to get three points.

What have been the main challenges in competing as a part-time team?

The main things have been trying to juggle the rest periods between games and training. I’m very fortunate to have had a squad of players this year – and previous years to be fair – that looks after themselves and do train very hard. This year we’ve had to cope with getting in at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. We didn’t have many overnight trips, but we might have two away trips – say one on the Saturday and another game on the Tuesday.

It was trying to get that rest and recovery period, juggling with work, being part-time and the guys getting up and being in the next training session. We give players quite a bit of time off from training to be fair, simply because we would be getting in that early in the mornings. We just tried to let the recovery period take care of itself and get them into a routine that they were used to.

We’d pencilled in about ten or eleven overnight stays, but in the end we only had two because it’s not what we normally do. We were used to getting up in the mornings so we’d travel at 8 or 9 o’clock, do a few hours and break the back of the journey, rather than on Friday afternoon which takes twice as long. All of that comes into it quite a bit. If we were getting in at 3am, some of the players were getting up at 6 or 7 o’clock which meant that Wednesday was completely out of it.

There were a few times when we didn’t come in on the Thursday, simply because of that. It wasn’t many times, but it was just when we had some tough games. We usually train on Mondays, but maybe a long journey on the Saturday and home game on the Tuesday meant we would try and give them as long a rest period as possible and not do the training simply because of that. This year it worked out but whether it will work out next year remains to be seen.

How have you managed the recruitment of players and what attracts them to The Darts?

Like we did last year, we’ve had to learn to be patient and not have to have everything done by the end of May. Players contracts in the full-time game run up to the end of July, so that’s when they stop getting paid and that’s when they would have spoken to lots of clubs and then make their decision because they’re not getting paid anymore. So you have to patient.

We have to be very, very careful that if we have any player that comes from a lower league or drops down that they’re the type of player that we want with us. They’ve got to be up for that challenge. The ones that are full-time we’ve got to be careful where we spend our money. The ones that come in from the lower leagues; you’re taking a gamble, but we want the hungrier type of players.

They may not have the same experience as the ones that are dropping down the leagues, but those are the ones that have got a lot of enthusiasm and they want to learn. They want to have a go in the league and they’ve got the hunger for it. That’s where we’re coming from, and you just have to be careful who you sign.

I’ve spoken to a lot of players already; they’ll come for one meeting, they’ll come back for a second meeting and if they walk out after the second meeting they won’t be with us. That’s has simple as that.

The attraction is that we want to do well. We want to win every game. A lot of people say “we’ll finish fifth from bottom and that’s fine”, but it’s not fine. You’ve got to have ambition, and while I’m here, we’ll always have that. We want to be competing in every game that we play. One year a part-time side will get in the play-offs I’m sure and they’ll have their good and bad runs at the right time.

We were very close to doing that this year, and I’d like to better ourselves every year but that’s a tough, tough call because it is a tough and very good league. But it’s where we want to be and hopefully in five years’ time we are established and our ambition now has got to be to try and play in the League. That’s the only way I see it.

What do you think have been the main factors behind the team’s success?

First of all, you’ve got to have a changing room that’s together and a club that’s together, and that’s been proved this year. I know it was all new but the players and the supporters have always been there. I feel that whether we win or lose, if the supporters can see players working hard then they’ll back them 100%. I’ve got to add the quality to that commitment and that’s where these other teams have got that quality and can go for the more experienced players.

Losing the two Toms is a major blow to us. They’ve gone on to better things and I’m trying to get players in that want to go onto better things by joining us, and if they have the same attitude as the Toms then we won’t go far wrong. The players that I’m talking to at the moment are 24 and 25 some of them, and if they match the attitude of the two Toms then we’ll be alright.

It takes time, and to do what they have done has taken three years – not just one season. People have got to be patient with that and hopefully we’ll pull the right people in and they’ll be as good as, if not better, than the players that have left us.

I can’t say to them not to go to a full-time club, because they wanted to improve themselves. They had jobs that let them do that. It was an opportunity for them to go full-time and I wouldn’t take that away from anybody or discourage it. It’s nothing to do with wanting to leave Dartford or that we treated them badly, but the full-time part of it came in to play and in the future I hope it does with us.

Our philosophy is that our players have got to work hard. If I can get that mentality into them then the supporters will appreciate that. Over the next few years we will have that commitment and work ethic carrying on, but we've got to make sure the quality improves as well.

You've guided the club to three promotions in five seasons - How big of a jump has it been between the  divisions?

The Isthmian North to the Premier is always a jump and you’ve got to improve, but the jump between the Conference South and the Premier is massive. I think it’s a big, big step and we did well last season – on adrenaline a lot of the time and our organisation – and we’ve got to continue to do that. Especially now that people know us; they’ll know what to expect and will want to try and stop us, so to me the difference is that it’s a lot more professional.

It’s where we want to be and we want to improve our standards and that’s what we've done by coming into this league. The gap is a lot, lot bigger and you've got to be together, and although we’re part-time we've got to think in a professional way. That’s what you have to do in this league.

You get comments like “it’s better than smashing the ball when you play on the deck”, but we haven’t tried to coach them in a different way to do that – it just happens. You've got to be organised, that’s what you’ve got to try and do. The decisions the players make, that happens out there every single game. Sometimes it’s good and the decisions they make come off and you win games, but we haven’t tried to change the way we play.

But when people see us play on the deck; we want to do that, but it’s important to smash the ball into the channels sometimes. The level we’re at, you have to play like that sometimes. But you’ve got to win games. That’s what we’re here for and if you win games you've always played well, and if you lose games it’s because we haven’t played the ball on the deck.

It might be the change in football; you might have a bit more time or whatever. We’re not saying to players that you've got to play in a certain way. The football has been decent, and you've got to see games out. The teams in this league, where they’re professional, they see games out for the 96 minutes. If they’ve got a chance to get something out of a game then they try their best to do it. That’s why you’ve got to be more professional in the way that you think.

What would you say to other clubs with similar ambitions?

We don’t go over budget. We have a good accountant who says “this is what we can spend” and “this is what we’re expecting to come in” and if it costs £10 then we don’t go out and spend £20 – it’s as simple as that. Our house is in order and I think that everyone is pleased that that is the case. Yes I do lose some players over it, but at the same time we give out decent money. It’s not the highest paid, but I think it is better that they know that it’s there.

The board have always backed me in near enough everything that I’ve have done or asked, and we do it within our means – it’s as simple as that. We budgeted for 10 overnight stays and only had two, but it allowed us to give the players a decent coach to travel on because we did it that way. I feel it’s important that while we’re travelling that we can eat the right food and the club would back me on that. I think the secret is basically to not spend beyond your means and that’s what we’ve got to strive to do.

I’ve had an increase on budget each year I’ve been there. It’s been fair – I’d always want more but it’s been fair and you have to work within that and that’s what we try and do. The players’ money is there at the end of the month and that’s due to a lot of work behind the scenes. The people who sponsor us, we can’t thank them enough. It’s so helpful when that happens. We’ve had some very good sponsors over the years and all of that is a must because we wouldn’t be where we are, that’s for sure.

How are preparations going for next season?

I’ve met with all of the players from last year and the majority of them have signed deals; I wanted to get that done first. I’ve had a short break and come back with some targets that we wanted to talk to. I’ve had 5 or 6 players now that I’ve spoken to and told them what we do, they’ve listened to me and I’m hoping that they’ll come back and sign deals before we come back for pre-season. In June there will be more players calling up wanting to talk to you because their contracts will be up, but you’ve got to be patient.

You can’t just think you’ve got to sign everyone because you’ll miss someone, because your budget is gone. We have to be patient – the season starts on the 10^th August and if we sign someone as we did last year like Harry Crawford leading up to the start of the season, then so be it. Hopefully by being patient we’ll get the right players in.

We’ve made our moves for certain lads, we’ve got 8 or 9 players (now 13 or 14) signed and I want a squad of 18, so I’m going to need another 10 players. And I’m confident that we’ll get them.

There has been mention of the club looking to go full-time at some point – Going in to the future, how likely do you think that is?

There has been a lot of talk. I’ve had a lot of discussions with the board and we put together some figures that we think would have put the club at risk at this moment in time, unfortunately.

I’ve also looked at whether we train on a Monday night and we have a split in the squad; we’d have a gradual thing where some players are signed full time would train Monday and Thursday nights, Tuesday and Friday daytime with the Wednesday off.

If we go full-time straight away we’d probably lose some really good players that can’t commit to doing the full time training and day-to-day running of it. There is a big issue with full-time players’ contracts because they run from the 1^st July to the 31^st June, so there are two or three months there where you have no revenue coming in but you still have to pay the players.

That’s a big ask for clubs in our position. There are a lot of things bolted on to players’ contracts when you are looking to go full time and a lot of issues that the club needs to sort out; things like medical insurance and a full-time physio. It’s not just the players - it’s the whole club.

You’ve got to be careful, but having said that, I think over the next five years it will need to happen. We’ve got to be looking at it, but looking at it and doing it are two different things and we looked at this year and it was completely out of the question.

We’ll look at it again next year but we’ve got to make sure we have that foundation. The foundation began seven years ago, but that foundation has got to be stronger now. I’m helping with the academy at the moment. We haven’t got an in-between side at the moment but we’re trying our best to get somewhere where the players can play at a good standard.

We’re trying everything we can to either develop an U21 league or start one and it hasn’t happened yet. But it needs to happen. That gap needs to be filled from academy to first team and then we’ll grow that way, and there will be the opportunity for players to come through and get to play in the first team. All those things take time, but the long term plan will be to become a full-time outfit and we would compete with the big boys in this league.