Aldershot Town

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Aldershot Town
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Basic data
Surname Aldershot Town Football Club
Seat Aldershot , England
founding 1992
Board EnglandEngland Shahid Azeem
Website theshots.co.uk
First soccer team
Head coach Danny Searle
Venue The Electrical Services Stadium
Places 7,100
league National League
2019/20 18th place
home
Away
Alternatively

Aldershot Town (officially: Aldershot Town Football Club ) - also known as The Shots - is an English football club from the city of Aldershot . It was founded in the spring of 1992, shortly after the over-indebted fourth division club FC Aldershot had to stop playing. FC Aldershot, founded in 1926, had previously been a member of the Football League since 1932 .

The team plays their home games in the Recreation Ground , which since 2013 has been officially called "The Electrical Services Stadium" after a sponsor. From 2008 to 2013 the club played in the fourth-class professional league Football League Two .

history

The first decade (1992–2002)

The city of Aldershot no longer had a football club on March 25, 1992, after FC Aldershot was the first English professional football club to withdraw from Accrington Stanley in 1962 during the current season. With Aldershot Town, a new city club was immediately launched and although it started in the third division of the Isthmian League , the number of spectators in the first mandatory home games was already higher than in the last home game of FC Aldershot against Cardiff City in the fourth division . Under the direction of the former player Steve Wignall , the new club won ten games in a row and led the table as champions with an 18-point gap.

A year later, the direct march into the First Division of the Isthmian League followed, which was also accompanied by a quarter-finals entry in the FA vase . Although the club had to do without Steve Wignall, who had joined the Manchester United coaching staff in the middle of the 1994/95 season , he also remained on the road to success under Steve Wigley , a former Nottingham Forest winger . The third rise in a row, however, prevented the poorer goal difference against the competitor Chertsey Town - despite a series of six winning games at the end of the season. After two more seasons in the upper half of the table, in which the team missed the desired promotion again, Wigley left the club in July 1997 in the direction of his ex-club in Nottingham to head the youth department there. Under the new coach George Borg succeeded the next development step and already in its first season 1997/98 Aldershot Town won the championship in the First Division of the Isthmian League, which was synonymous with promotion to the Premier Division of the Isthmian League. The audience for the club, which had only been founded six years earlier, had also increased significantly, which was particularly evident in the almost 4,300 spectators in the decisive home game against Berkhamsted Town. The team found their way in the top Isthmian League division and won after a seventh place in 1999 in the 1999/2000 season, the runner-up behind Dagenham & Redbridge . Another “respectable success” fell at this time with the 1999 Isthmian League Cup .

For the first time against competition from the Football League Aldershot Town appeared in the local Recreation Groud in the FA Cup of the 2000/01 season. The opposing fourth division team Brighton & Hove Albion proved to be too powerful in front of the new record crowd of 7,500 spectators in the 2-6 defeat. To take the next step, the jump to the next higher Football Conference , Borg signed a number of new players in the summer of 2001. The team showed itself again in the FA Cup already significantly improved and forced the professional competition of Bristol Rovers to a replay, which they only won in the 87th minute with a 1-0 in Bristol. The expectation pressure on the team increased significantly and after disappointing results in the league, such as a home defeat to Boreham Wood and a 1: 3 defeat against Canvey Island - after an initial 1-0 lead - Borg was from November 2001 despite his previous merits under massive criticism in public opinion. Borg left the club in January 2002.

The leap into the Football Conference (2002-2007)

Exactly ten years after the last league game of FC Aldershot, its successor club Aldershot Town signed Terry Brown on March 20, 2002, the fourth coach in its history. Eleven players had to leave the club and were replaced by new players, the majority of whom already had experience in the Football Conference or even in the Football League. After a mixed start to the 2002/03 season, which was partly due to injuries to some key players, the newly formed team took the lead in November 2002 and never gave it up until the end. A 1-0 win in front of 2,400 Shots fans in the opposing stadium of the pursuers Canvey Island ensured a preliminary decision in the promotion battle in April 2003 and the first participation in the game operation of the Football Conference later resulted in a 1-1 draw at Sutton United mathematically for sure.

Brown's team, whose players, in contrast to many league competitors, still played football on a part-time basis, held up surprisingly well in the fifth-highest English division and secured a play-off spot for promotion to the Football League at the end of the 2003/04 season . After a semi-final win there against the favored Hereford United , the shots were in the play-off final against Shrewsbury Town . The final did not find a winner after a 1-1 draw after regular time and had to be decided on penalties . In this none of the players from Aldershot Town could convert his penalty kick and so the "Shrews" retained the upper hand with a total of 4-1 goals. Regardless, the club made an important structural decision on May 24, 2004 and converted the club into a full-time professional club on July 1, 2004, so that Aldershot officially had a professional football team again within its city limits after twelve years. As in the previous year, Aldershot Town secured a play-off spot in 2005 and faced Carlisle United in the semifinals . After a 1-0 win in the first leg, the shots in the opposing Brunton Park were 2-0 down before a goal in stoppage time to 2-1 forced extra time and then a penalty shoot-out. Despite a 3-1 lead there in the meantime, the shots drew the short straw in the final, as in the previous year.

The upward trend was then stopped for the time being and the 13th place at the end of the 2005/06 season was disappointing despite being put into perspective by the injury problems. In the subsequent 2006/07 season, too, the shots never came close to a play-off spot and ended up in ninth place with a gap of 13 points on these ranks in the reformed Conference National consisting of 24 teams . In March 2007, coach Brown had already resigned, citing the health of his wife as the main reason.

Promotion to the Football League (since 2007)

After assistant coach Martin Kuhl had held the position of coach on an interim basis, in May 2007, Gary Waddock, a former Irish national player , took over the sporting direction of the Shots. With a fresh breeze and the new captain Rhys Day , the team showed consistently good performance, especially until the end of the year, and after 42 games and 17 points behind Torquay United in second place, they only needed one point for the direct promotion to the champions of the Conference National. Aldershot Town achieved this goal on April 15, 2008 with a 1-1 draw at Exeter City and qualified for the first time in the club's young history for the game operation of the Football League. With at the end of 18 games in a row without defeat and the record yield of 101 points, the Shots won the championship in the Conference National, which had previously been crowned by victory in the Conference League Cup .

The Shots won their opening game in the 2008-09 first season of Football League Two 1-0 against Accrington Stanley . The debut in the League Cup of the Football League against Coventry City four days later, however, was lost 3-1 at the Ricoh Arena . With 17 points behind the relegation places, relegation in 2009 ultimately succeeded without any problems.

successes

Conference League Cup : 1

  • 2007/08

Isthmian League Cup : 1

  • 1998/99

Hampshire Senior Cup : 5th

  • 1998/99, 1999/2000, 2001/02, 2002/03, 2006/07

League affiliation

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Exeter 1-1 Aldershot" (BBC Sport)
  2. ↑ "Aldershot Town win Setanta Shield" (BBC Sport)