Can Celts target Alfie handle a move from Charlton to Paradise? NO DOUGHTY ABOUT IT
First boss at Kingstonian says Addicks kid made such an impact on loan that when he left team it cost the manager his job
HE shot from the seventh tier of English football to the second rung in just two years.
And according to the man who gave Celtic target Alfie Doughty his first real taste of men’s football, the 20-year-old has got the legs to take him right to the top.
Doughty is a wanted man after he become a mainstay in the Championship for Charlton last season.
The wide man was again a standout for the Addicks as th ey dumped Swindon out of the EFL Cup on Saturday.
But it was in the school of hard knocks that is the Isthmian League Premier Division that Doughty cut his teeth on loan at Kingstonian in the first half of the 2018-19 season.
Leigh Dynan was the man who plucked him from Charlton’s youth system at 18 and flung him into an arena which can make or break young talents – often all too literally.
But Dynan had no doubts about the teenager who he says won’t be pushed around by anybody.
Such was his impact that Dynan insists the end of Doughty’s loan deal midway through the season cost Kingstonian not only promotion – but him his job.
He told Record Sport: “Alfie is a tremendous footballer and a top lad. He has a big future.
“I signed him at Kingstonian and he was just 18 but his athleticism caught the eye straight away. He has an eye for goal even playing down the left flank and has a great engine.
“He was a good size then and I’m sure he’ll have bulked up a bit more now too. He had a determination and enough about him at that age to make sure he wouldn’t be pushed around.
“There’s no airs or graces about Alfie. The boys liked him and he was around some very experienced nonleague players. So he had to show them what he could do on the pitch right from the start.
“There’s no point coming in being Billy Big B******s if you can’t do the job on the pitch. I’ve had loanees from pro clubs who haven’t cut the mustard and I’ve had to send them back.
“One of them was a million-pound player but he couldn’t cut it or handle the physical side of non-league.
“But there was no problem that way with Alfie. The players respected him because he was very good on the park. People would go through him but he is a solid player physicality wise and he would take it and give a little back.
“I know Jason Euell at the Charlton academy and we agreed Alfie needed to come out and play some men’s football when we signed him. The Under-23 league is a bit false. You need to feel what it’s like to come and play for three points on a Saturday.
“Alfie took to it like a duck to water. He scored twice on his debut, one was a header at the back post where he beat the defender in the air and I thought ‘that’ll do for me’.
“You could see his quality – it stood out a mile. You look at him and think he’s not fast but he’s deceivingly quick and has a great delivery. The balls he puts in are a real asset.
“He’s gone from that to being a regular with Charlton, via another loan deal at Bromley, in the space of two years. You don’t do that so young without having real quality. I just wish we could have held onto him longer.
“Look what happened after he went back to Charlton at New Year in 2019.
“We were second in the table on January 5. By February 12 I got the sack because we had lost six on the bounce. I lost seven players – Alfie and Ben Dempsey went back to Charlton while James Daly returned to Crystal Palace and another four were injured.
“If we held on to those three players we’d have been promoted.”
Celtic’s hunt for another left-sided player to fill the Boli Bolingoli-sized hole at Parkhead is no secret.
Dynan, now boss of East Grinstead Town in the Isthmian League South East division, reckons Doughty, who has a year left on his deal with Charlton, is equally adept as a forward-thinking full-back or an outand-out winger.
He said: “He does both sides of the game. He’s good at defending but he is also good at going forward with the ball, putting in crosses and getting the odd goal. Wing-back or a full-back that bombs on – he can do both.
“He likes to play on the outside rather than coming inside and he can beat a player with the pace and quality he has.
“There’s a diamond there to be polished. I can assure you that.”