Aldershot Town started their pre-season campaign with a 2-0 win at Badshot Lea.

Goals from Marcus Wyllie and John Gilbert fired the Shots to victory in front of a Badshot Lea club-record crowd of 908 at Westfield Lane.

It was a slow but positive start to the game from the Shots, quietly knocking at goal with several snapshots inside the opening ten minutes. An excellent crossfield ball from Kiki Oshilaja found Toby Nelson on the left, who won a corner. The subsequent delivery resulted in a header that went just over the bar.

A counter-attacking opportunity presented itself after Badshot Lea lost the ball at the edge of Aldershot’s penalty area, and some nice link-up play between Kiban Rai and Michee Efete on the right resulted in another corner. The ball was whipped in and cleared away towards Jacob Borgnis, whose half volley was beaten away by Baggies keeper Jonas Cody.

The Baggies had a good opportunity on 31 minutes when Fareed Hakeem-Habeeb put Stan Jones clean through on the right-hand side of the penalty box, forcing Shots keeper Nick Hayes to make a solid save.

A half chance fell the way of Joe Lewis-Evans, who found some space on the left, but his effort from a tight angle was straight at Cody.

The Shots went close again on the stroke of half-time when Tristan Abrahams’ ambitious lob forced an excellent save from Cody. The resulting corner was whipped into the pack, where Wyllie took advantage of the chaos and put the Shots in front.

Aldershot doubled their advantage in the 64th minute when Gilbert’s thunderous strike found the top right-hand corner from 20 yards out.

Michael Stickland went close to adding a third with a towering header from a corner. The Shots went close again when Basil Tuma’s shot on target was saved.