By Albatross
December 2 2004

It's a good few years since Hartlepool United met Aldershot - since when the original club has gone bust, and a new one has surged through the pyramid. Here's a quick look at what our FA Cup opponents have been up to since their formation in 1992.

20th March 1992: the day it all ended. Or, in some senses, began. On that day Aldershot FC played their last ever game - against Cardiff at Ninian Park. Before the next scheduled fixture, the club - formed in 1926, and members of the league since 1932 - had become the first team since Accrington Stanley to leave the league mid-season. Their debts - large for the time, but compared to many clubs now pitifully small - had finally overcome them, and the club that just five years previously had become the first team to win promotion from Division 4 via the Playoff system was no more.

Aldershot were of course regular opponents for Pools after the reorganisation that created Divisions 3 and 4, and the last time we played them was in our Promotion Season on 1990/1; the 5-1 hammering we inflicted on them was unfortunately for them typical of the sort of result they were experiencing at the time. That was their last full season, and they conceded over 100 goals as they finished next to bottom - and the final year of their existence saw things as bad again, with less than 20 points on the board from over 30 games by the time they finally folded.

The club may have gone bust and been wound up, but the fans were still there; so was the Recreation Ground, and so the following season saw a new club formed - Aldershot Town, the original name of the club that had gone out of business. They joined the Isthmian (Ryman) League Division 3, five promotions away from League Football - and yet such was the interest in the resurgent club that more people watched them at that lowly level than had attended for the last professional fixture at the Recreation Ground!

With Steve Wignall in charge, and the income generated by the crowds much larger than the teams they were facing, the new club quickly achieved success. Just two league defeats came in their first season, and they ran away with the title; and third place the following season saw them achieve back-to-back promotions. With a good run that took them to the quarter-finals of the FA Vase to boot, the Shots looked like they were going places.

Steve Wignall certainly was; he left the club partway through the following season, moving to take the reins at Colchester, and the club appointed Steve Wigley as his successor. They however just missed out on a third successive promotion, goal difference seeing them have to settle for 4th place. Things just wouldn't quite click for Wigley; after finishing 5th and 7th, he left to join Nottingham Forest's Youth setup. His replacement, George Borg, knew what was required - and the Shots won the title by 11 points to secure promotion to the Ryman Premier in 1997/8. They were now just two steps from League Football once more.

However, they found themselves in a hotly-contested league with just one promotion place to the Conference. Borg lead the team to a highly respectable 7th place in their first season, and then the runners-up slot the following year - albeit some distance behind Dagenham & Redbridge. Fourth place followed in 2000/1, but when Borg began to criticise the fans in November 2001 for their lack of patience, the writing was on the wall for him. Shortly after he left, and after a lengthy selection process former Hayes boss Terry Brown was appointed as the new manager. He succeeded where Borg had failed; and so, eleven years after the old club went bust, the name of Aldershot once more was on the national radar with promotion being won at a relative canter. The success continued last season; an FA Trophy Semi-Final, and fifth place in the Conference at their first attempt; the Playoffs then saw them beaten on penalties in the final by Shrewsbury.

Now a full-time side, Aldershot Town are once again at the right end of the table. They have never finished lower than 7th in any division, and with crowds averaging over 3000 they have plenty of support; you certainly wouldn't bet against them winning promotion in the next couple of seasons at least. They have yet to progress beyond the second round of the FA Cup, and yet to beat a League team in a competitive fixture - but Pools will need to be wary of a side that is pretty well used to being a success.

Sources: The Football Club History Database and Shotsweb - Official Aldershot Town Website