The late Pope John Paul II has closed in on a ‘fast-track’ sainthood after a Vatican medical committee confirmed his first miracle.
The former pontiff, who died in 2005, has been credited with saving the life of a French nun who recovered overnight from Parkinson’s disease.
Despite doubts being cast on the ‘miracle’ last year – a Polish newspaper suggested that Sister Marie Simon-Pierre may have suffered from a curable neurological disease with symptoms similar to Parkinson’s – the case has now cleared the medical commission and John Paul is likely to be beatified before the end of the year.
All that is needed for canonisation is evidence of a second miracle……
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. However, what followed was an experience to which no football supporter should ever be subjected.
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.
As Aldershot clung on to life in 1992 the saving grace was the dwindling band of professionals, only one of whom refused to play, even though they had not been paid since December.
Moreover, Dave Puckett, on signing for Bournemouth, even wrote in the Aldershot programme that he did not want supporters to think he had deserted them. He would have carried on playing for nothing until the end of the season.
1,374 fans saw the ‘last game’ at home to Northampton Town on March 7th 1992. However, it was not all over, the heart flickered, the Shots entered a phase of temporary remission and Lincoln City attracted a crowd of 1,473 programme collectors to the Recreation Ground for what had to be the last game.
Nevertheless, with the Government resisting all requests to legalise the services of Dignitas in Switzerland, assisted suicide was simply not an option and it was Ninian Park Cardiff on March 20th 1992 that finally 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 devotion only normally displayed by those who dutifully attend the bedside of an aged relative in the last days of their life.
For too long the devoted ‘faithful’ could be seen gripping the railings in the North Stand, perhaps holding on in the forlorn hope of a saviour, a strategy for recovery, a new dawn…….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 southeast. 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 could not 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 - oh, and this Saturday when Oxford United visit the Rec.
However, in those ‘early years’ my infrequent trips back to the Rec always aroused the feeling of ‘ghosts from Christmas past’.
After parking close to Redan Hill, the walk down to the ground always 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…..
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. It was to become a season that exposed the senses to the beauty of power and pace. A confidence developed in innocence.
In May 2003 and against all odds Aldershot Town reached the Nationwide Conference play-off final. The defeat by Shrewsbury Town of no significance when set in context with the explosion of excitement dressed securely in a feeling of community pride as the game was played out in front of 20,000 fans.
Therefore, when around 900 Shots fans made the trip to St James’ Park on Tuesday April 15th 2008 to experience a 1v1 draw with Exeter City, it was not just another game and another point. 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 Wrexham, Luton Town, York City, Newport County, Mansfield Town, Darlington, Grimsby Town, Kidderminster, Rushden and Diamonds, Barrow, Southport and Cambridge United….….will agonisingly understand.
Getting back to the Football League in just 16 years was an achievement that was not simply delivered by the youthful exuberance of the young squad, the outstanding goalkeeping of Nikki Bull and the leadership shown by manager, Gary Waddock. And despite its obvious impact, the genuinely caring 'hand' of Chairman, John McGinty was not single-handedly responsible for the explosion of joy that lit up the Exeter sky in April 2008.
Undoubtedly, it is easy to conclude that financial mismanagement and widespread apathy sank the Shots in 1992…..but the restoration of League football to the Recreation Ground in 2008 was achieved through something far more complex - the innate heady mix of innocence and enthusiasm that delivered the irresistible and combined emotional power of so many people.
On April 22nd 1992 Terry Owens held a public meeting to seek support for the ‘proposed’ new Aldershot Town FC….the Shots were soon to be ‘alive and kicking’.
Aldershot came back to life in 1992 because for many, its power was defined by something greater than anything that money could achieve, or indeed destroy.
Our Club was re-created by the genuine passion that flows through the veins of us all. But today we appear to be 'bleeding to death'......action on all fronts is required before the end of January.
Miracles are best left to those who specialise in such matters……..
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