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New Dartford assistant boss Roland Edge on joining the Princes Park club this summer and aiming for 2024/25 Isthmian Premier promotion
New Dartford assistant manager Roland Edge admits promotion will be the main aim for the club in the 2024/25 season - but knows it will be far from easy.
Edge has been appointed Ady Pennock’s No.2 at Princes Park this summer, the duo keen to ensure the Darts’ Isthmian Premier stay is a brief one.
But plenty of other clubs - including 2023/24 Play-off Finalists Chatham and fellow Kent rivals Dover, also relegated from National League South - will be among those to have similar ambitions.
Edge said: “Everybody says the same about that, don’t they?
“I feel Dartford fans will be saying ‘We will bounce back up’ - obviously, that’s what we’re hoping for - but it’s going to be tough.
“If you look at Hornchurch last year, they ran away with it. But I actually thought Billericay would be second - it just so happened Chatham did really well.
“I watched the Semi-Final at Chatham actually and they both (Chatham and Horsham) played like sides from the level above.
“I think anyone from eight or nine could go up.”
Former Gillingham defender Edge, now 45, has always kept in contact with Pennock since their days playing together at Priestfield and jumped at the chance to work alongside him again.
He said: “Dartford has always been a big club, hasn’t it?
"It’s well run and has got good people there.
“Ady got the opportunity to go in there a little bit late in the season. He didn’t really get enough time to put his stamp on things - and get them out of trouble.
“He rang me up and asked me to be his No.2.
“When I broke through into the Gillingham side, Ady was well-established. He was a big character.
“The team was full of good guys, as well as good players - not just one or two - there were the likes of Ady and Iffy Onuora, and a lot more.
“Once that team broke up, we stayed in contact and you know yourself that he’s a really good guy.
"It was a no-brainer, really.”
Edge is happy to return to being the manager’s right-hand man again, having done so under legendary boss Neil Cugley at Folkestone for many years before he took joint-charge of Invicta alongside Micheal Everitt. The duo were sacked in November and replaced by Andy Drury.
“The roles are really different,” the school teacher noted. “As a No.2, you’re there to support and help out wherever you’re called on. I did that with Cugs for a long time.
“Being an assistant is a good job and it’s an important job.
“But it’s not as hard as being the No.1. I know that now!”
Edge is likely to make his Cheriton Road return at some point during the 2024/25 campaign.
“I was at Folkestone for a long time,” he said. “But things in football don’t always last forever, do they?
“Folkestone will just be another side that we face. We will go about our business as usual against them - the same as we will do against everyone else.
“I will look forward to going back there because I still have a lot of friends at the club.
“It’s going to be quite strange, trying to win against a lot of people that are familiar to me in the crowd.
"But that happens in football.”
While Edge enjoyed the time he had away, getting to watch his son play more regularly, he always wanted the chance to join a club’s backroom staff - and Dartford presented the perfect opportunity.
He said: “It was always going to happen. I just had to pick the right thing and, when Ady phoned, I felt it was right.
“I’m looking forward to pre-season. That’s a time when you get all the lads in and start preparing but, really, the first game of the season is what we’re preparing for.
"I cannot wait.”
Edge believes it has been some time since he was last part of a club who came up against the Darts at Princes Park.
He suggested: “I’ve not played against them there for probably 10 years!
"That was probably when they were just getting out of Isthmian Premier and they had people like [Elliot] Bradbrook. It’s been a very good club for a long time.
“Just by turning up, you sort of feel like you’re at a different level, don’t you? It’s a really big ground.”
While Dartford are still trying to make plenty more summer signings, having recruited ex-Chatham midfielder Ben Allen and the returning striker Duane Ofori-Acheampong this week, Edge and Pennock are prepared to be patient to get the right ones in.
“Every manager says the same thing,” he said. “Ideally, you come out the blocks and get everyone signed - but it doesn’t work that way.
“We have been busy, talking to certain players. But it’s not going to happen overnight. It’s a waiting game.
“We have got some over the line and, hopefully, there will be some more signings soon.”
But giving chances to the club’s successful youth-team players is as much on the agenda as signing new players is.
“They’re an added bonus,” Edge said. “Ady is always quite complimentary of them and says ‘Look, these players are good - they can play in the first team’. Olly Box did well in National League South last year.
“They have got a fantastic Academy and that can definitely help the first team.”
The new Darts duo have club director Tony Burman, himself an ex-Dartford boss, to lean upon, too.
Edge said: “He has been a successful manager.
“Cugs always spoke highly of him and Ady speaks highly of Tony. But I’ve not really spoken to him that much yet.
“As much as I’m with Dartford, I’ve not been in the ground much. Most of it has been done on the phones.
“But I know Ady speaks to Tony and he’s just an added bonus for us to have.”