ALDERSHOT Town have revealed an ambitious five-year plan which hopes to see them return to the Football League and playing at a rebuilt Recreation Ground by 2025.

Chairman Shahid Azeem and manager Danny Searle unveiled the blueprint at a packed fans’ forum last Thursday, with redevelopment of the EBB Stadium – including the construction of a new 7,000-capacity arena, at a cost of £7 million, plus 136 houses and a 140-room hotel – due to begin in the summer of 2021.

A 118-year lease on the site, which is owned by Rushmoor Borough Council and has been valued at £3.5 million, is due to be ratified in the next two weeks, and would allow the club to proceed with plans which Azeem described as a “game changer”.

The renovation would see the stadium move slightly north-east of its current footprint, away from the adjacent London-to-Alton railway line on the south side, and to create more space at the High Street end of the ground to accommodate the hotel and additional car parking spaces. It would retain what he called a “retro” feel – “not a soulless, plastic stadium”, promised the chairman – and also be designed to allow for a further increase in capacity if required.

Azeem estimated that the hotel, including its conferencing and hospitality facilities, would earn the club approximately £400,000 a year; money that would go directly to the manager’s playing budget.

Aldershot Town would continue to play at the stadium throughout each stage of the reconstruction, which is being designed by architects EPR, whose previous credits include London’s Qube office block, Farnborough’s IQ business park, and Birmingham city centre’s HS2 expansion.

The chairman also revealed a three-year target for the club to be debt-free. After February’s announcement that the club had a total deficit of £768,000, up to 30 June 2018 – with further significant losses expected from the disastrous 2018-19 season – he admitted that the club are now operating on a budget which will break even for 2019-20.

Espousing a “‘we’ mentality”, and stressing the need for the club “to open up”, Searle outlined his own all-inclusive vision which creates an infrastructure fit for the Football League and sees the future appointment of a head of recruitment to ensure Aldershot Town are able to scout the best young players both above and below them in the pyramid. A direct ‘pathway’ from the Shots’ Academy to the first team was also identified as crucial to success just months after Searle awarded senior squad numbers to six youth team members.

“Football has been at the EBB Stadium for 92 years now, and we hope this development will see football here for another hundred,” said Azeem. “I am also conscious of the need to create a stadium that replicates the club’s roots and heritage, and will have the same fantastic atmosphere that we create in our stadium today.”

The project, which aims to rejuvenate not just a football club but also the entire town, shows laudable foresight and ambition. Whether The Shots can match that on the field remains to be seen.