Newcastle United defender Paul Dummett says deeper ties with Gateshead will benefit the club's young players.

Dummett had a spell on-loan at Gateshead early in his career and has seen young goalkeeper Dan Langley make such a move for this season.

He recalled: "At this point, I didn't think I would ever play for Newcastle. Even though it was still a good standard in the Conference, I didn't think that I would play for the Newcastle first team.

"But my thought at the time was that I needed to go and play football somewhere - it's going to benefit me playing for a men's team, whether it helps me get somewhere else after Newcastle or helps me at Newcastle. A lot of clubs don't take a chance on younger players, and I had to try and go and play there.

"I was in the reserve team at Newcastle at the time. Players were saying to me, 'what are you going there for?' They were laughing at me, saying, 'don't go to Gateshead'. They basically thought they were too good to go to Gateshead.

"But I was thinking that I didn't have any other options at the time, and I needed to go and do something. It was close as well. I was only there for a month or two, then came back to Newcastle.

"I really enjoyed it. The lads were good there. I knew quite a few of them anyway - Gateshead had quite a lot of players from the North East. Then they had a few ex-Newcastle players who were older than me, so I knew of them but didn't know them. It was fine from the start. We trained every day, round the back of the stadium.

"It was different to the reserves here. You had to try and win, and it was much more physical - it was just much harder altogether. For all young players, it's good for them to do that. I learned a lot playing there, playing in front of fans who actually support the team, because it's different in the reserves - you have people coming to watch, but just because they're interested in the younger players. It meant a lot more to people there."