Stanley assistant manager Leam Richardson believes what goes around, comes around and he felt the Reds got their just desserts on Saturday.

After Chesterfield had been given a controversial goal 10 days ago, when Jack Lester handled the ball in the build-up, Stanley came out on top in a decision that could have gone either way against the Shots.

Peter Murphy challenged for a looping ball in the final minute with Shots keeper Jamie Young who couldn’t keep hold of it.

He spilled the ball and sub Padraig Amond pounced and it was game won for the Reds.

The Shots contingent was furious, eagerly watching replays immediately after the game with boss Dean Holdsworth stating it was a ‘blatant foul’ by Murphy.

While many an assistant’s flag has been raised in the past for such incidents, referee Mark Brown agreed with the Accy viewpoint that the keeper was at fault and just couldn’t keep hold of the ball – and the Reds celebrated three points against a team who hope to be challenging in the top seven this season.

Richardson said: "Aldershot can maybe have a grievance with the goal but they couldn’t have a grievance with the result as we dominated possession, had the chances and all the stats leaned heavily in our favour.

"We had problems with the officials at Chesterfield but luckily it has gone our way on Saturday and we will take it."

To be fair to Holdsworth he admitted his side were second best after the break and that he would have been pleased to have come away from the Crown Ground with a point.

And that’s perhaps a measure of how far Stanley have come over the years.

In their early Football League years, teams expected to come to Accrington and roll them over and were furious when it didn’t prove to be the case.

Now the Reds have established themselves as a League Two club and, under John Coleman and now Paul Cook, are a team expected to be challenging in the higher spots in the league.

It says something for the current strength of the Reds that they had the likes of George Miller and Dean Winnard missing through injury and Michael Liddle and Toto Nsiala out suspended, and yet the players who came in slotted in seamlessly and those sat in the stands now face a fight to reclaim their first-team places.

Centre-back Rob Atkinson, signed from Fleetwood the day before, looked like he had been in the team the entire season while midfielder Danny Schofield, on his full home debut, is forging a strong partnership with captain¿Luke Joyce ahead of the back four.

Cook does now have a wealth of choice at his disposal, even able to drop striker Amond and give Reading loanee Karl Sheppard a chance back in the starting line-up.

And it was Sheppard who’d had the best chances until the 90th minute winner.

In the first five minutes, he used his pace well to hold off his marker and race through and it had to be top marks to keeper Young for one-handedly stopping Sheppard’s strike.

But, after the break, Craig Lindfield played a superb cross from the right that the striker was stretching for and will have expected to do better with than send the ball wide. Reds’ left-back Lee Molyneux had an effort cleared off the line by impressive midfielder Josh Payne while Rommy Boco fired into the side netting.

Boco was the Reds’ main threat and has come back to the Crown Ground a more confident player after his spells in Ireland, Burton and China.

His pass to another full debutant Matt Whichelow was inch-perfect and it looked like all the Watford loanee had to do was hit the target but he sliced the effort well wide.

It wasn’t one-way traffic as three-goal Shots striker Craig Reid had a couple of good chances while Danny Hylton got the ball on the edge of the area and lined up to fire home – but his shooting was wayward.

It did look like the game would finish goalless – a rare event as Stanley had only failed to score in a defeat to Exeter in the league so far this season – but then Boco’s shot looped up, the keeper lost the ball and Amond was on hand for his fourth goal of the campaign.

"We are obviously pleased," continued Richardson. "Teams like Aldershot are going to come to our place and set up to defend and it’s important that we are patient, we keep doing things the right way and the players believe in themselves and the messages the management are giving them.

"We kept going right to the end and we believe, if you create that many chances, you will get your rewards.

"We are a good team and if we do the right things, we will win most games.

"I think if we had got an early goal we would have gone on to win this comfortably but we will take the win whatever way it comes and we are made up."

As well as the controversial goal the game ended with Shots sub Peter Vincenti getting sent off in injury-time for an alleged elbow on Amond.

Holdsworth called Vincenti a ‘silly boy’ and Richardson added: "Podge is an honest lad, he wouldn’t go down unless there was an infringement although I didn’t actually see the incident."

And, while he didn’t see that, he did witness Boco recovering from a knee injury during the game to take the man-of-the-match prize.

"He was dancing around in the dressing room so he must be okay," smiled Richardson. "Boco has great qualities, he has settled in well and he has good experience and advice to pass onto the younger lads. So all in all it was a good all-round day."

And the Stanley fans will back that up!