It's a new era for Aldershot Town, and not just because Terry Brown has been appointed the new manager.
The two men most responsible for the club's formation in 1992 are fading into the background.
Terry Owens, the founding chairman, announced his resignation as a director a few weeks ago and long-serving company secretary Graham Brookland is calling it a day after the home game with Heybridge on Saturday.
The fact that Brookland was employed full-time suggested that Aldershot were no ordinary non-League club. It signalled their intention to eventually regain the Football League status they lost with their financial collapse during the disastrous 1991-92 season.
With attendances regularly exceeding 2,000, Aldershot could afford a full-time secretary, but what Brookland crammed into his job brief will only become truly apparent when he has gone. He will be a very difficult man to replace.
Apart from the day-to-day administration at the club office, there are the long hours taken up by Saturday and mid-week matches and board meetings that last well into the night.
Brookland is the voice of the highly lucrative Shotsline – updated every day – on which he also does live match commentary.
No wonder then that he confesses to feeling "very tired" after nearly 10 years in the job. "It's all got a bit too much and I'm looking forward to spending more time with my family," he admitted.
This season has perhaps been the most taxing yet, with everything that has happened off the field and the eventual resignation of manager George Borg.
Brookland's quiet efficiency as secretary was appreciated by anyone who had dealings with the club – not least the media.
He had a vested interest in the club's well-being, having been a fanatical supporter of the old professional club since boyhood. He was, for several years, chairman of the Supporters Club and spoke eloquently at those marathon meetings in the 1980s when power struggles between the major shareholders did much to weaken the club's position.
When Aldershot FC finally went under in mid-season, it was Brookland and Terry Owens who spearheaded the successful campaign to build a new club from the ashes. The phoenix rose and, quite remarkably, Aldershot Town FC was up and running for the start of the 1992-93 season – in the Diadora (later Ryman) League Division Three.
Brookland's prowess in dealing with the paper-work involved made him an obvious choice to be the first company secretary.
Owens' high profile
Terry Owens' low-profile resignation from the board was in sharp contrast to his high-profile six years as club chairman, from 1992-98.
Having a high profile was no bad thing when it came to putting the club back on the map after the events of 1991-92.
It was Owens who rallied the Aldershot faithful and a new club was speedily formed, Aldershot Town FC.
Former player Steve Wignall, the first manager, built a team from scratch, using mainly local players, and on August 22, 1992 they emerged for their first match against Clapton (Aldershot won 4-2) in front of 1,493 spectators – an astonishing attendance for such a lowly league.
Owens, a local businessman who had supported the club all his life, had briefly served as a director, but had an uneasy relationship with the old club, although he led the valiant Save Ours Shots fund- raising campaign.
His energy and drive when it came to salvaging something from the wreckage of Aldershot FC made him a popular choice to be the first chairman.
Even his best friends would admit that Terry Owens has an ego – you can hear his rendition of 'Danny Boy' only so many times. Others felt that being chairman simply went to his head.
But Owens got things done. Two successive promotions followed and success on the field was matched by a buzzing social scene. The club rode a tidal wave of public goodwill.
When the club got carried away with that early success, overspent and lurched into debt, Owens and his directors put sensible financial restraints in place and the chairman vowed to shareholders that Aldershot would never again operate in the red.
Owens worked long and hard to bring George Borg to the club four years ago and his perseverance was justified when the Londoner guided Aldershot into the Premier Division at the first attempt.
Owens, somewhat reluctantly at the end, gave way to Karl Prentice in 1998, but declined an invitation to become president, preferring to continue as a director.
Borg's reign ended messily – he was effectively voted out by the directors – and Owens, his staunchest supporter on the board, followed within a month, resigning for personal reasons.
One memory of Terry Owens: in one of the early matches, with another big crowd at the Rec, a woman in the north stand went round to the club offices to complain about verbal abuse from a male supporter. A few minutes later, it was Owens, alone and in his Saturday best overcoat, who climbed into the stand to read the culprit the riot act. What other football club chairman would have done that?