Aldershot Town FC

For the life of me, I thought I'd already written a post on Aldershot when I completed the National League teams, but I must have just done the research and then never actually got round to writing it. So I owe the club an apology, especially because, of all the clubs in England, this one can boast of representing one of the finest institutions in the land today – the British Army.

Before we get to that, Aldershot as a football club is itself quite the tale of battle and comebacks. It's a story of one of English football's most remarkable rebirths.

The original Aldershot F.C. was founded in 1926 and spent much of its history in the Football League, achieving promotion from the Fourth Division in 1973 and becoming the first winners of the Football League play-offs in 1987, beating Wolverhampton Wanderers. They adopted a great badge in 1973 too: a red and blue shield – the Army colours – with a cannon on it for "Shots", which had become their nickname, and was entirely suited to a town that was home to the Army's HQ.

However, despite this success – and a cracking badge – they ended up more than £1.2 million in debt, and this led to the club's liquidation in March 1992.

Determined not to lose football in the town, supporters quickly formed Aldershot Town F.C., a "phoenix club" – a new club rising from the ashes of its predecessor. And so their new badge sort of designed itself: the Phoenix.

Beginning life in the Isthmian League, Aldershot Town won the National League title in 2007–08 and were promoted to League Two, marking the first time the new phoenix club had reached the Football League. They spent five seasons there, reaching the League Two play-offs in 2009–10 before being relegated back to the Conference in 2013.

In 2025, Aldershot Town achieved one of the greatest moments in its history by winning the FA Trophy at Wembley, defeating Spennymoor Town 3–0 to claim the first major national cup competition in the club's history. However, last season saw the club struggle near the bottom of the National League table, narrowly avoiding relegation.

So that's Aldershot the club – and their Phoenix badge. The club was saved by its fans, who have since been rewarded with EFL football and recent Trophy success.

But what of the town itself? What of the Army connection?

Well, for a long time it was a tiny little place, attracting little more than sheep farmers to the local church's land and little else. A manor house was built, but things only really began to get interesting in the Victorian era.

First, a turnpike (toll road) was built through the town, connecting London to Farnborough. The idea of a turnpike was that you paid for a decent road to travel on – and a safe one. But the local operators struggled to protect their paying customers, and highway robbers ("Your money or your life" types), including the famous Dick Turpin, would routinely rob travellers.

In fact, so notorious was the area that people reported sightings of the urban legend Spring-Heeled Jack – a half-devil, half-man type creature in a cape who could leap great heights. A sort of Home Counties Batman. He supposedly preyed on passers-by – or at least he did in the new London "penny dreadful" stories that were being printed at the time.

However, Aldershot's history was about to change dramatically. In 1854, the British Army realised the value of having land where it could routinely practise and train troops. Such efforts had always been largely ad hoc before; something more professional and permanent was needed. It also had to be close to London, have good transport links, and be cheap enough to buy.

In stepped the town of Aldershot. The heathlands were still mostly used by the odd sheep herder.

A deal was struck, and in marched the British Army. Wooden huts were built to house the troops, and Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, took a keen interest in the site, funding a permanent library building called The Prince Consort's Library to educate future Army officers. It still stands and is in use today, housing a large collection of military books and records. It also came to house a statue of the Duke of Wellington – the general who defeated Napoleon in 1815 at Waterloo. What is superb about this statue is that the bronze comes from melted-down and recycled French cannons.

The Crimean War of the 1850s saw thousands more troops based permanently in Aldershot, and soon those wooden huts gave way to brick barracks. It was such a large and convenient site that it soon came to house the Army leadership too, and it became the home of the British Army – something it remains to this day.

During the First World War, having a place like Aldershot became vital to winning the war. In 1914, the British Army had sent almost its entire strength into France in a force known as the British Expeditionary Force, around 100,000 men. Kept historically small by European standards (Britain had the world's largest navy to keep it safe – it didn't really have much need for a large army), it was nonetheless exceptionally well trained. Trained at Aldershot.

In the opening battles with the Germans, enemy troops are supposed to have complained to their commanders that the British Army had endless numbers of machine guns because every time they advanced, they were met with a hail of deadly fire. However, it was merely the skill with which the average "Tommy" could wield his Lee-Enfield rifle that convinced the Germans that such accurate and sustained fire could only be achieved by machine-gun trickery.

However, despite being superbly skilled, they were also heavily outnumbered and, in just under a year, while they successfully did their job in blocking the German advance into France, most had ended up as casualties.

Britain needed a new army. Fast.

In stepped General Kitchener, famous at the time for being an old war hero from Sudan. Indeed, one of Sudan's best football clubs today, Al-Merrikh SC, was founded by students from a school set up by Kitchener's army in 1902.

Kitchener was given the job of recruiting a new army. It is his face on the famous recruitment poster, and he adopted a new system of promising to keep friends and family together if they joined together – the so-called "Pals Battalions". He was able to recruit more than a million men, most of whom would be trained, at least for part of their training, at Aldershot.

Aldershot helped build the modern British Army and played a vital role in Britain's war effort against Imperial Germany. It has been estimated that, at any one time, around 20% of all British soldiers during the First World War were based at Aldershot.

During the Second World War, it came to play a similar role, but this time especially for the Canadians. Canadian men who joined the Army travelled to Aldershot to undergo their basic training – 330,000 of them in total. The Canadian Army to this day holds the honorary "Keys to the Town" in acknowledgement of their contributions and sacrifices.

More recently, in 1971, two years before the original football club's promotion, the town suffered one of the worst terrorist attacks in British history. The IRA detonated a car bomb outside the barracks, killing seven and injuring nineteen, all civilian support staff. The town itself and the Army barracks had until then been largely open and integrated. This attack caused the barracks to erect walls and fences to separate it from the town proper.

Within these fences, known as Aldershot Military Town, are around 10,000 people connected to the Army in one way or another. It also boasts its own football stadium, home to the Army's football team and the site of many inter-regiment games and tournaments.

So there we have it. Aldershot. One of the most important and influential towns in the country. And, just like the phoenix on their badge, once again their team is looking to make another comeback.

In April 2026, former Premier League goalkeeper Scott Davies, who had played for Aldershot in his early career, was appointed manager and tasked with rebuilding the squad.

Since taking charge, Davies has moved quickly to recruit new players and reshape the team – 12 new signings so far at the time of writing, and we are still only in July. Much like the club itself, a good number of those players are themselves also enjoying a rebirth and looking to reignite their careers once more.

Let's see what happens.

Up The Shots.