2008 was great, if you only read the 'back pages'......

2008 was a horrendous year for the financial stability of the world. Banks collapsed all over the place, the pound became a euro and the high street will never be the same again. Yes, the demise of Woolworths proved that one just can’t survive on pick ‘n’ mix alone.

And the safe stewardship of our economy by ‘Prudence Brown’ was finally exposed as no more than a mirage of fatal attraction. Added to which the whole of the ‘Banking World’ was shown to be either dishonest or pathetically inept.

So wasn’t it reassuringly comforting to wake up on 31st December to the sanctuary, safety and tradition of the New Year’s Honours.

In 1297 King Edward I was almost overthrown by his rebellious subjects, and was compelled to reaffirm the Magna Carta, which recognised the rights of nobility. Sir replaced ‘sire’ as the correct way to address the 6000 knights who made up the lowest level of nobility, and whose support he desperately needed to fight a war in France and to help suppress the Scottish rebel William Wallace.

Most of the other honours featured in the ‘list’ were founded in 1917, to recognise people who had contributed to the war effort but did not qualify for bravery awards. They of course include, in order of seniority, the CBE, OBE and MBE.

Pele, Charlton, Moore, Charles, Yashin, Eusebio, Cruyff, Best……all genuinely great players. And I’m pretty confident that anyone who, like me, has watched soccer over the last fifty years would include them all in a list of the top ten greatest players.

And in the United Kingdom the Honours System designed by Edward I, and refined in 1917, is a wonderfully apposite way of recognising a pre-eminent contribution in any field of activity, defined by achievement which is both inspirational and significant.

Bobby Moore, who so sadly died in February 1993, was awarded the OBE in recognition of lifting the World Cup in 1966.

Sarah Kate Webb joined the ‘OBE Club’ after winning ‘Beijing Gold’ in the Women’s Keelboat Yngling.

But recognition came somewhat belatedly for Bobby Charlton, and many years after the end of a playing career that few could match, a CBE in 1974 was followed 20 years later with the knighthood that his world-wide inspirational status so richly deserved.

There are 195 countries in the world. Although if you live in Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Greenland, Palestine, Western Sahara and, yes even Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England….I’m sure you could argue that the ‘fully independent country, state or nation-state’ definition is somewhat outdated. Perhaps you would prefer measurement by FIFA membership…..currently standing at 208.

Winning three gold medals was undoubtedly a great personal achievement for Chris Hoy. But I do suffer from a nagging worry when Team GB proves to be so much better than the rest…..

Sir Bobby Charlton - inspirational and significant. Sir Chris Hoy……I wonder what Edward I would have made of it all.

The barren urban form of Northfleet was never going to be a fitting venue for a performance that would determine the return of Aldershot to the Football League.

To have witnessed promotion at Stonebridge Road would have been like experiencing the return of Nigel Kennedy to public acclaim, after a self-imposed exile, in the South Bank underpass and not within the restored splendour of the Royal Festival Hall.

But it was not simply the surroundings that made Ebbsfleet inappropriate. Had Aldershot Town secured promotion on April 8th 2008 it would have been as a result of Torquay’s failings.

Aldershot Town reached the top of the Blue Square Premier in October 2007.…and they sustained their position by winning games.

So as the players travelled back to Aldershot, after a hard fought draw, the points needed for promotion were down from 5 to 4.

And then a home game with Burton Albion, on April 12th, offered another chance for Torquay to fail in their quest to reduce the massive points gap. An expectant but nervous crowd of nearly 6000 filled the Rec, all praying for a Torquay slip up. Torquay ‘kept standing’ and another Shots win left the revised promotion points target….one point from the four remaining games.

Then when around 900 Shots fans made the trip to St James’ Park, Exeter on Tuesday April 15th……it would prove to be just another game….one point…..ignore the rest.

Looking back I guess the terminal illness that struck Aldershot FC could have been diagnosed long before December 28th 1991, when the Shots recorded their last League win - 2v1 v Maidstone Utd. But what followed was an experience that no football supporter should ever be subjected to.

The death of our once proud Club was painful. From January to March 1992, Aldershot played 16 games, lost 14, drew 2 and scored just 2 goals.

1374 fans saw the ‘last game’ at home to Northampton Town on March 7th 1992. But it wasn’t all over, the heart flickered and the Shots entered a phase of temporary remission. Then Lincoln City attracted a crowd of 1473 programme collectors to the Recreation Ground for what had to be the last game.

But with the Government still resisting the opportunity to support assisted suicide the ‘big needle’ was simply not available, and it was Ninian Park, Cardiff on March 20th 1992, that saw Aldershot pass away.

The Football League statement that followed the High Court decision was short and to the point….’The liquidator called in to supervise the winding-up order of Aldershot confirmed to the League that no offers had been received for the club. It is with deep regret that the League is left with little alternative but to announce that Aldershot’s membership is terminated with immediate effect’.

It was so hard to watch Aldershot gasping for breath over the final weeks of life. Each visit to the Recreation Ground undertaken with a dutiful resilience. A responsibility normally reserved for the few to attend at the bedside of an aged relative…….and when death finally came we were released to get on with our lives.

The rebirth of senior football in Aldershot, created from the ashes of the old club, was for me, no more than a distant ‘play thing‘. The start of the 1992/3 season coincided with a move away from London and the south east. Aldershot Town was still an ‘obsession under construction‘.

My ‘big’ brother constantly pulls my leg about the lame excuse, ‘but I live in Wales’, offered when I couldn’t get to Collier Row for a Tuesday night fixture. Yes, ‘where were you at Royston Town?’….he chides, forgetting his absence at Carlisle on Tuesday 28th December 2004.

But in those ‘early years’ my infrequent trips back to the Rec always left me with the feeling of ‘ghosts from Christmas past’.

After parking close to Redan Hill, the walk down to the ground exposed deep seated emotions. The floodlights coming into view first, then the East Bank, the North Stand followed by a glimpse of the ageing but classic form of the South Stand. Everything was in place…..

And looking around in the North Stand the faces were the same. Perhaps all showing signs of age but still no wiser.

Promotion to the Conference at the end of the 2002/03 season coincided with my own ‘life changing’ moment.

The season started in hospital and ended up at Stoke. A season that exposed the senses to the beauty of power and pace. A confidence developed in innocence. And the play-off final? Simply an explosion of excitement dressed securely in a feeling of community pride.

A memorable day to store alongside my first game at the Rec in 1960, and Aston Villa (’64), and Manchester Utd (‘70), and Liverpool (‘71), and Stockport (72/3), and Shrewsbury (’79), and Wolves (86/7), and Jack Howarth……

So as I look back to the 1v1 draw at Exeter, it wasn’t just another game…one point….ignore the rest. No, the result returned to Aldershot a status that was so painfully taken away in 1992.

Membership of the Football League is not a ‘right’ held in perpetuity by 92 Clubs - a fact of life that all supporters of Oxford, York, Torquay, Wrexham…..and soon to be followed by Luton….will agonisingly understand. So it is with great pride that I can report that our place somewhere closer to the ‘top table’ was achieved not by the outstanding goalkeeping of Nikki Bull or indeed the youthful exuberance of the young squad. No, the restoration of League football to the Recreation Ground was achieved through the combined emotional power of so many people over the period 1992-2008.

Aldershot are back, and a win tomorrow against Notts County could move the Shots into a Division 2 play-off place. Yes this is quite simply a sporting success story of far greater significance than the winning of a few ‘soft’ Olympic medals…….