Charley Kendall has joined National League side Dagenham & Redbridge on a season-long loan, the Imps announced this afternoon.
Since signing for the Imps in January 2022 from Eastbourne Borough, the young forward has been on loan with Sutton United, and Bromley. Although he was successful with Eastbourne, his time with Sutton and Bromley didn’t afford him the game time that City fans had hoped for, leaving him with little chance to prove himself at either levels.
During last season, Kendall appeared for the Imps in five matches and scored his first goal for the club in a brilliant performance against Doncaster Rovers. Despite facing challenges during his previous loans, director of football Jez George emphasized that this is still an integral part of Kendall’s development.
“Development is rarely linear, and Charley will have learnt a lot about himself and what is required as a centre forward in professional football last season.
“What Charley now needs is regular football and the opportunity to do what he does best: scoring goals. Their manager Ben Strevens knows Charley’s game really well, having tracked him from his days at Eastbourne Borough, and we have been impressed with Ben throughout the process of identifying the right loan for Charley.
“Nothing has changed from our perspective. We signed a talented young player with potential and we are still committed to doing everything we can in helping Charley to succeed at Lincoln City.”
An interesting part of the deal for me is that he’ll be available for our EFL Trophy matches against Notts County, Derby and Wolves U21’s, so we’ll be able to give him some games with our first team to aid his development, which will be important if he isn’t getting the games at Dagenham and is in a similar situation to the one he found himself in at Sutton. Charley had a tough season last time out and hopefully this loan spell will help him get back on track and propel himself back into contention for the first team in 2024. Dagenham is a good place to go too, Ben Strevens clearly likes the player and Dagenham will be looking to move up the division and challenge for a playoff place too, giving him a competitive environment to go in
In my opinion, this is a massive season for him and this spell could be the difference between him staying with the club and departing. He still has lots to prove, despite the goals for Eastbourne, he hasn’t shown his ability elsewhere for a number of different reasons. Our fanbase really likes him though, and we’ll all be rooting for him to do well. I really hope it all goes well for the lad.