Aldershot Town F.C.

Aldershot Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Aldershot, Hampshire, England. The team competes in the National League, the fifth tier of the English football league system. The club was founded in the spring of 1992 after the closure of debt-ridden Fourth Division club Aldershot. Aldershot Town play at the Recreation Ground, which had also been the home ground of the previous club. Initially placed in the Isthmian League Third Division, Aldershot Town won the league in their debut 1992–93 season and won promotion out of the Second Division the following season. They won the First Division title in 1997–98 and the Premier Division in 2002–03 to gain a place in the Conference. They spent five seasons in the Conference, losing twice in the play-offs, before winning promotion into the Football League as Conference National and Conference League Cup champions under Gary Waddock's stewardship in 2007–08. They spent five seasons in League Two, reaching the play-offs in 2010, though were relegated back into non-league football and entered administration in May 2013. They reached the National League play-offs in 2017 and 2018. History Formation and the Isthmian years In March 1992, the town of Aldershot was without a football club after Aldershot F.C. became the first Football League team to fold during the football season since Accrington Stanley in 1962. The original Aldershot club had been in the Football League since 1932 and competed in the Third and Fourth Divisions. Promotion had been achieved as recently as 1987, but relegation followed two years later and debts well into six figures had almost brought about the club’s demise in the summer of 1990. Despite a rescue package allowing the original winding-up order to be rescinded, the club’s debts remained high and the club finally went bust just over 18 months later.