Meet the Aldershot FA Cup star who also works for Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach
Aldershot Town are set for a rollercoaster afternoon against Stockport County – and not just because captain Aaron Jones works for Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach.
The Shots caused one of the great FA Cup upsets of modern times in the last round as they hit League Two Swindon Town for seven. Tommy Widdrington’s underdogs ran out 7-4 winners at the County Ground, having led 7-0 before a late Robins fightback.
That set up a mouth-watering home tie against runaway League Two leaders Stockport, who were the country's form side until just last week. The Hatters have since lost to Newport County and drawn to Salford City, proving that Dave Challinor's mob are just mere mortals like the rest of the division.
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Shots captain Jones can't wait for the Hatters to arrive at the EBB Stadium on Sunday. The defender followed Widdrington across from King's Lynn in the summer and has an interesting sideline as the Director of Business Development at Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach.
The Norfolk amusement park has been in the 29-year-old's family since 1954 and provides Jones with a welcome escape from football. "It was my great grandfather on my dad’s side who originally purchased the park with his brother, Albert Botton," Jones revealed in an exclusive interview with Daily Star Sport.
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"It’s been passed through the generations since. My dad’s dad took over – unfortunately we lost him about 10 years ago – and he was also the vice-chairman at Norwich City, so there was a football connection as well!
"When he passed away my dad took over as managing director. It’s very much a family affair. My brother is there full time and I work remotely in the afternoon, and dad is on site.
"My role is director of business development, so essentially I do anything that can push the company forward, increase revenue and customer engagement and make us more sustainable in the future.
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"It’s exciting and it’s nice for me as it means I have an escape away from football. Often as a footballer you become so wrapped up in the industry, because everything is based around how you do on a Saturday.
"You take that into the rest of your life. It’s nice to be able to train in the morning and then switch off at 1pm and focus my energy on something else."
Jones had to be switched on in round one against Swindon – if only to keep his team-mates' feet on the ground. "We were pinching ourselves as the game was unfolding in front of us," he says, recalling their 7-3 win.
"A draw would have been seen as a very good result, so to be 3-0 up in the first ten minutes, we couldn’t believe what was going on."
Going in 4-0 up at half-time represented a unique challenge for Jones' captaincy. Not many skippers have to manage expectations to such an extent against a higher division opponent.
"I knew how excited everyone was going to be. But, being captain, you have to try and tell people that the job isn’t done. Statistics and maths would probably say that it was extremely unlikely for us to concede four goals or end up drawing or losing the game, but we still had a job to do in the second half."
"The boys were excited, and spirits were high, but we had to stay grounded and put in a good performance in the second half, which we did for 30 minutes and then had a mini collapse towards the end. It annoyed a few that we conceded the four, but we made a lot of changes and brought on some younger lads, so it was a good experience for them."
While it may have been a freak scoreline against Swindon, the result itself was no fluke. Aldershot are flying under former Kings Lynn boss Widdrington, who has transformed the club since arriving in April.
The Shots have gone from relegation battlers to play-off contenders in the space of a few short months. They have won eight of their last ten matches in all competitions, including three in four since that win over Swindon, and currently sit 6th in the National League table after back-to-back wins deep in injury time.
There's a character and togetherness among this Aldershot side that previous iterations have perhaps lacked. Now they're ready for a crack at Stockport as they bid to make the third round of the FA Cup for the first time since the 2012-13 season.
"We know how good a side Stockport are," Jones continues. "Most of the players have played against them in the last couple of years.
"They’ve got an incredibly good manager, and they’re a massive club with a strong fanbase. It’s not going to be an easy game and we’ll go into it as underdogs, but there’s a feeling around the place that we have something special going on, especially at home.
"That makes it difficult for opposition teams to come to us. With the fans behind us, the players get extra-energised. We like to believe that on our day we can go toe-to-toe with anybody, even a team flying high at the top of League Two."
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