Few men will manage one football club for a decade and most members of that exclusive club would instinctively cast a retrospective gaze over their achievements upon reaching the milestone.

Not Tony Burman.

Dartford’s all-time leading goal scorer and longest-serving manager may have written most of their recent history but it is the club’s future which concerns him most.

Having inherited a team which was staring down the barrel of relegation to the Kent League in 2005, Burman has dragged the Darts up the non-league pyramid and into a division which now contains Bristol Rovers, Grimsby Town and Wrexham.

The 56-year-old is proud of that meteoric rise but he knows the biggest challenge – keeping Dartford at the top of the non-league game – lies ahead.

He said: "Things have moved at an incredible rate and the foundations of the club, I don’t think, have followed the acceleration of the first-team and there is still a gap.

"We set some things up four years ago and knew that it would take us four or five years to get a production line going and that production line hasn’t happened yet. It’s close but it’s not all in place for us to put people from our development squads, going into the academy, going into the first team, into place. There’s nothing in between at the moment, nothing between the academy and the first team.

"Because the first team have done that well to get us into the best league in the country for part-time clubs, there’s still a big gap. This season or next season, the development side of the club, from under-8 to under-16, will connect with the academy teams.

"That’s one part of the production line. Then we’ve got to do something to close the gap from the academy to the first team.

"The foundation of the club has got to be stronger and that’s starting to be in place now. Everything’s not quite connecting but it will do over the next two years.

"The future is good for the club in the respect that the people running it, the board of directors, are excellent guys who have got the club at heart. They’ve got the finances of the club at heart. It’s easy for anyone to crack under pressure with what some supporters might want.

"You have to live with the ups and downs of football and as long as this club is around for the next 10 years, that’s the main thing. If we can be around for the next 10 years and still continue to be in the (Conference) Premier, the aim would have to be trying to get into the League.

"It’s a long way off but it’s a dream. The Conference, 10 years ago, was a long way off."

It certainly was. Dartford, under the management of Tommy Sampson, were languishing towards the foot of Southern League Division 1 East and a 2-0 defeat at Aveley on January 22, 2005 proved to be Sampson’s final game in charge.

Burman, who had joined the club’s board of directors just a few months earlier, was put in caretaker charge two days later.

He said: "I didn’t see myself taking it permanently and that’s the truth of the matter. My idea was to help out and things went right, to be fair.

"I think we were second from bottom and we managed to win some games and got out of trouble. It doesn’t always work but it did at the time. Then we started the procedure of looking for a new manager."

It fell to Burman to appoint Sampson’s permanent successor.

He said: "I had two main candidates at the time, Andy Ford and Chris Kinnear, who I’d spoken to with Dave Skinner.

"I thought the pair of them were excellent in their talks with us, really good but the ground hadn’t been built and it was all on paper at the time. Whether it was unfortunate or not, it was probably fate that they declined the offer to be the manager."

Either way, Burman agreed to take the job himself – and it was fitting that he was the man to lead them back to Dartford in 2006/07 after 13 years of homelessness and groundshare agreements.

Darts had played their home games in Sidcup, Belvedere, Purfleet and Northfleet during that time so it was understandable that even Burman should be initially sceptical about the grand plans for the building of a new stadium in the town.

"There was always the knowledge that the ground may be built," he said. "There were drawings and planning applications were going in. Although you still didn’t believe it, you just got on with your job.

"When we came up here and the diggers dug the first hole in the playing field, you thought ‘this looks like it’s going to happen’ and when they started to build the place, it became vast. I didn’t realise how big the stadium was going to be.

"It was a fantastic feeling. I was so pleased for so many people in Dartford who had stuck with the club. There were 300-odd guys who supported the team when they were away from the town. It was an unbelievable feeling. It was so surreal, seeing it all being built and walking around the site."

Princes Park was a stadium the club’s supporters could be proud of and Burman was building a team to match. Dartford’s first full season back in the town saw them win Ryman League Division 1 North.

Burman said: "We attracted players because of the facilities. It was more to do with that than the finances. We attracted players who’d won things at other clubs.

"It didn’t surprise me going up from the North because we were good enough to do that. It was in the Ryman Premier (in 2009/10) when we had an amazing start to the season. We brought in some good players.

"But there were still some rough times and the expectation went sky-high. Everyone was calling for my head in one season in the Ryman. When we got promoted, they expected us to get another promotion (immediately) and it wasn’t to be. I think we finished seventh and everyone wasn’t too happy with that.

"But the next season, that’s when we progressed again."

In the space of five seasons, Dartford won promotion three times. They beat Welling United in the 2011/12 Conference South play-off final to reach the top tier of non-league football.

"We’ve come a long way in a short space of time,” Burman said. “The 10th year was when we were supposed to be trying to get into the Conference Prem and we did that after six years.

"We had a good first year in it (Dartford finished eighth to become the top part-time club in England) but because of our success, we lost a lot of players."

Tom Bonner and Tom Champion, who made more than 100 appearances between them that season, both left to sign for Cambridge United. Marcus Bettinelli returned to Fulham after a triumphant loan spell and Mark Arber – Bonner’s central defensive partner – also moved on.

Relegation followed in 2013/14 and only a summer reprieve stopped Dartford dropping back into Conference South. That disappointment made Burman all the more determined to turn things around. He now works full-time at the club and oversees the academy programme.

He admitted: "I find it difficult to switch off when I go home. You have to try to do it but if we’ve had a bad result on the Saturday, I’ll go home and I’m in a dreadful mood. I’ve got a fantastic family who help me out in that way and they’ve taken a lot of stick over the years.

"It is difficult to shut it out. You try to make a time in the week where you say ‘right, I’m not going to answer the phones’ and for me, Sunday is the only time I might be able to go to the local and really de-stress.

"It wasn’t planned but I can be here 24/7. Living down the road as well, not too far away, I tend to come here sometimes when I don’t have to."

As his team have climbed the leagues, so the media spotlight has shone more brightly on Burman in recent years. Speaking to newspapers, radio and television has been part of his learning curve.

"I’ve tried to grow into it," Burman said. "You have to be careful what you say straight after games and I’ve put my foot in it a few times, especially in the early days.

"I don’t see that you have to criticise people in public – players or supporters – although sometimes you can get heated with certain things that you’ve heard. One supporter might upset you and you tarnish it as all the supporters. It shouldn’t be like that and you have to learn that people are entitled to their opinion, whether you agree with it or not and whether it upsets you or not."

One of the biggest developments during Burman’s 10 years at the helm has been the rise of social media. Twitter, Facebook and online fans’ forums now give every supporter a platform to air their grievances after a game.

Burman said: "It can be dangerous because things can be interpreted in the wrong way. People now can have their opinion and sometimes they’re being disrespectful but sometimes they’ve got some valid points. It’s the way you read it and if you take notice of it."

Also making Burman’s job increasingly difficult is the rise to prominence of several other Kent clubs. Kuwaiti-funded Ebbsfleet are looking to reach the Football League within three years, Margate are heavily backed by owner Bob Laslett and Maidstone United’s return to the County Town has seen attendances soar and quality players sign up.

Dover have overtaken Dartford as the county’s top-ranked non-league club and Welling have joined them in the Conference, while the wages Bromley are prepared to pay players means they are also providing competition in the local market place.

Burman said: "I do welcome the competition but I don’t want it at our expense. These teams coming up, these other clubs who are in Conference South, lots of them are blessed with a lot of funding at the moment – which happens. It makes our job more difficult sometimes but that’s half the battle.

"I’d like to see them come up because I’d like to see more local derbies and more teams in Kent playing each other, especially at the highest non-league level.

"It would remind us all how good Kent football was at non-league level years ago. There were some great battles. There’s nothing better than a local derby in Kent. I used to love them and hope some of the teams progress to get up into the league we’re in.

"I hope we can still be competing with them, not just next year but in future years to come."

It would be easy to envy managers with bigger playing budgets but Burman takes a different view.

He said: "When I first took over at the club, we didn’t have the money. We had what we had and it wasn’t a lot but we had to keep the club going. You learn from that way.

"I was delighted to be able to work with a decent budget. It was nice to know the money was there, week in, week out, and that you didn’t have to cut things. As we’ve grown, I still think we produce a reasonable budget.

"Obviously, teams with the funding they’ve got now have gone past us, which happens but we can only do what we can do. When you’ve got the money, it doesn’t always guarantee success and that’s where you’ve got to keep your sensible head on."

That philosophical outlook reflects not only Burman’s vast experience but his immense affection for the club. He and it have been intrinsically linked since then Darts boss Graham Carr signed him in January 1979.

So what exactly does the club mean to Mr Dartford?

"It’s been a major part of my life for 30-odd years," Burman said. "When I started, I was loyal and stayed as a player for 10 years because I was treated with respect and in a fair way.

"I was never the highest-paid player here and managers tried to sell me a few times but different chairmen stopped that happening. I’ve just had a feeling for the club, a feeling for the supporters and it’s been a way of life for me for the last 30 years.

"I’ve now managed for 10 years, which is something I didn’t think was going to happen but it has now and it’s gone quickly. We’re in a difficult situation now but I’ve got us into that situation by getting us promoted to the top non-league division.

"I’m proud of what I’ve done and proud of the guys who have worked with me. The foundations are not complete at the moment and when I do hand over, I want it to be complete, regardless of what league we’re in. We’ll have something set up and it’ll be a better place for a new man to take over."

When might that handover take place?

"I’ll continue to do the job while people around me want me to do it,” Burman said. “It’s a privilege for me to be in a job like this and I enjoy it.

"There were opportunities for me to leave, three years ago, to take on other jobs but I decided to stay where I was. I never thought I was going to leave. It’s been my life and as long as I feel that the club are progressing in the right way, I’ll be here.

"But one day it’s going to happen and I hope that it happens in the nicest possible way. I hope I’ve played a small part in trying to build this club up to what it is."

There could be no greater understatement.

And whatever the future holds for Dartford Football Club, it must involve Tony Burman.