Just 11 years later the Shots are in the Nationwide Conference and within touching distance of a place in the Football League. They also have a mouth-watering second round FA Cup clash with Colchester United to look forward to.

And club chairman Karl Prentice is hoping that the Shots will produce a cup upset by knocking out their Division Two hosts and landing a place alongside the Premiership big guns in the third round draw.

Aldershot have already pocketed £22,500 in FA Cup prize money on their way to their second round trip to Essex. And according to Prentice, one of those involved in reforming the club a decade ago, the cash windfall is going a long way to helping the club's climb through the leagues.

"We look towards the FA Cup as an area where we can generate extra funds to strengthen the club and the playing side, so it is a very important issue for us," Prentice explained.

"We don't work on an overdraft so this money will help us to pay the bills for work being carried out around the ground. The underground drainage is being repaired, extra perimeter fencing is going up and new turnstiles are going in.

"It is important that we progress as far as we can, we are banking on the manager taking us all the way to the third round. Money from that would help overcome any financial problems we may have."

Prentice, who owns his own design and printing company, has been chairman of the Shots for the last five years. And although the club is still in its infancy, he said it was already looking to the future with a clutch of junior and reserve sides with links to The Rec.

But all this comes at a price, as the chairman explained. "We have sides all the way from u7s to u17s and we run a reserve side in the Pontins Combination, the only non-league club to do that. The Pontins League is an expensive league to compete in but if we can pull one or two players through into the first team then it will be worth it."

An FA Cup Victory over Colchester would bring another pay day for Aldershot ... and the opportunity to land a lucrative home tie, something to delight the fans after their side have been draw away in every round to date.