Barking have signed an exciting player development deal with Arsenal.

Bostik North club Barking have put pen to paper on a new development partnership with Arsenal, which will hopefully give an increased number of talented youth players the opportunity to play for the Gunners.

Mick O’Shea, Arsenal’s Hale End Academy Director, has revealed that the Blues have in fact been in talks with Arsenal over joining forces for 18 months now and both clubs are looking forward to being able to offer a path from non-league to Premier League football where they couldn’t before.

“Our coaches will get trained up to a better level and we’ll get Arsenal coaches coming to put sessions on at Barking, so it will be great to have someone regularly onsite from a Premier League club,” said O’Shea (via Islington Gazette), who was joined at Arsenal’s Hale End academy on Tuesday by Barking’s chairman Rob O’Brien.

“I’m sure they will take a few of our kids into the pre-academy, which is the group aged between six and nine, because they like to bring them in young.

“We get kids as young as four taking part in our Monday and Thursday sessions as well as the Saturday morning one, so across the three groups we have around 80 children and they could get chances now.”

He added, “What we need to do is make sure we are following Arsenal’s template at their academy and to make sure we are doing it all correctly.

“But they know we are located at a densely populated part of east London and it is a great opportunity for local youngsters.

“It will mainly be looking at the pre-academy group, so the six to seven to eight-year-olds, but not only they will get chances at Arsenal, our other older lads will too if they show their talent and potential.”

O’Shea pointed out that Barking’s coaches will get a different level of training as well, so they can help develop young talent even further and give them a better chance.

There’s also talks of an ‘Arsenal & Barking Cup’, which would involve local school children.

The partnership isn’t just brilliant for Barking, as they can now offer their youth more prospects as well as top-level training, but also for Arsenal. We get to cast our net wider in terms of seeking quality young footballers.

As the Gunners have shown before with the likes of Alex Iwobi, Reiss Nelson and Ainsley Maitland-Niles, there are even opportunities for young blood in the first team, which should give the youngsters something to aim for.

Barking are currently based at Mayesbrook Park, which is in Dagenham.