The rollercoaster ride of following Ebbsfleet United shows no signs of slowing down.

It’s been quite a journey in recent years. FA Trophy success at Wembley, being owned by an online community whose subsequent dwindling numbers threatened their very existence, before Dr Abdulla al-Humaidi came riding through the sunset to save the club from apparent extinction.

Even the past few years have seen demotion via points per game, a new German manager with a style almost unheard of at their level of the game, and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in May’s dramatic play-off final at Dorking.

It would take something special to trump that. But Ebbsfleet don’t tend to do things by halves so perhaps there aren’t too many raised eyebrows over plans for an ambitious 8,000 capacity ground to replace the much-loved, but mainly declining, Stonebridge Road. The old ground will be totally demolished and a new stadium built, at a slightly different angle, on almost the same footprint.

“It’s really exciting because at the end of the day we get a wonderful new stadium which is fit for purpose, designed for us, by us, with good expertise in that to do it just right,” explained Ebbsfleet chief executive Damian Irvine, whose vision will be shaped in the weeks and months ahead.

“Our supporters will have an input in the stadium, how it looks, standing, seating, safe standing, where they need their access. It’s a concept at the moment, we’re putting it out there before planning because it’s the right thing to do.

“A lot of places just go and put planning in place and try to bulldoze something through, saying that’s our plan like it or lump it. That’s not us, we wanted to put it out there during the consultation process with planning so when we do put the plans in place, we’ve heard everything, and come up with what we feel will be the most optimal solution for the area.”

Irvine describes Fleet’s fans as honest - “they tell you where the club is at” - and has taken the lead on adjusting their long-term outlook since joining early in 2020.

“The club’s had its ups and downs but at times its mortality has been shown,” he admitted. “We’re a member of the Fair Game group and people often roll their eyes and say but Ebbsfleet are big spenders and have a foreign owner, but we’re in that because we live and breathe the model.

“It’s honestly not been ideal and we don’t think that’s the way forward for football. Solving that sustainability question is a big issue for all football clubs at all levels. We saw how much at risk a club like Chelsea could be when there was an ownership problem and the cash couldn’t come through, for example. The board and I have been working long and hard on what that sustainability looks like. At the end of the day, it’s a model which the club has its football revenue but also non-core revenue which it controls and owns itself.”

Fleet, and indeed football, fans have heard it all before you’d argue. The new main stand at Stonebridge Road has been in operation for less than five years. Planning permission was in place for a hotel as part of a new Plough End, the old main stand has its uses - the dressing rooms still being operational was a huge benefit during Covid - but its days are sadly numbered.

“This club has Stonebridge Road,” says Irvine. “In its current guise and form it needs work. We’ve got a new stand but we’ve got three sides that aren’t.

“To patch that up and do it bit by bit isn’t economical and it doesn’t solve anything else for the community other than having some new football stands. We really wanted a sustainable model with the masterplan that Ebbsfleet continues to be the heartbeat of the community but also adds on to Northfleet and Gravesham borough itself.

“The hotel plans have been in place but I’ve been very honest in the last two-and-a-half years that I’d review those. I guess the fans can take some comfort in that I’m not prepared to take the easy option and go let’s just build that. It’s not right, it’s not enough.

“They’d provide hotel rooms for the area but outside of that, a new stand and a new hotel there doesn’t provide much else for Northfleet or help residents with services or anything, it’s just a football club hotel. That was designed to fit on the footprint that is already there so it was already compromised planning in my view.

“I appreciate they were promised but I did say we’d review all of that. We looked at increasing the size of it to make it more viable but we said no because that’s a small brick in what should be a full masterplan. That’s the plan - to do it properly and comprehensively rather than in little bits.”

The elephant in the room, no doubt, is how or why is a club that has debts above £16million building a new stadium. The great news for the Fleet is that the funds won’t be coming from their pockets or that of their owner. As with many developments, the housing and additional benefits on site will help fund the total package, complete with the modern-day commitment to cycle paths and leisure access as well as sustainability.

If the Fleet can get their current model corrected sufficiently to negate the annual eye-watering losses, then there is potential that revenues generated around the proposed development and stadium could flip their financial outlook on its head.

“We’re reducing the year-on-year loss, we’re not losing as much every year which is the plan and that’s right, we should be as efficient as we can,” added Irvine, who confirmed the new ground would be owned by the football club rather than any individual.

“We’re taking out a lot of wastage and being clever but if we keep on track within three or four years we’d like to not be losing any money each year. That still has to happen regardless of this development.

“All the developments in the world won’t cover wastage. It still has to keep going and then it gets really exciting. If you are running a break-even proposition and then you’ve got new revenue streams in a new stadium, then financial fair play is not an issue and you can be a really strong League 2-style club, League 1 and who knows!”

So, are the Fleet and their chief executive dreaming? What potential is there for these computer-generated images to one day become reality?

It’s the start of a long process but the Fleet feel they’ve got the right partner with Landmarque - they’ve “delivered designs and plans like this in retail and leisure” - and Irvine himself was at the heart of a multi-hundred-million-pound development at Cronulla Sharks in Sydney, Australia.

“When I went into Cronulla in 2009, 38 years of planning applications had been promised and fallen apart, they’d never happened on that land at all. When I left in 2013, the masterplan very similar to this was in place and that’s now in its 10th year. I get the cynicism, there have been promises, but we can only point to our record of having put the ball in the net and having done this.”

Despite the grand plans, Ebbsfleet are still a National League South club - two levels below the Football League and Kent’s only EFL club, Gillingham.

Irvine accepts that might be their natural level without any outside investment, but a new stadium could make it a whole new ball game.

“We knocked on their door because we didn’t want to build a little ad-hoc bit by bit,” added Irvine.

“We knew the partners involved and we knew what they had delivered. It’s funny you say it’s every football club’s dream, and it is. But I’m very cautious of dreams. This club has had dreams previously. It’s our concept, it’s what we want to do and we want to talk it through with supporters, like we did on Wednesday night and show them what, why and how.

“This football club as it is without private ownership and funding, in its natural guise is probably a lower National League South club, maybe the level below, if you’re just going on our supporter base and turnover. That’s not a criticism, every club has its natural situation.

“I get the strong feeling here from supporters that they are ambitious, they do feel they can be higher, whether that’s the top of the National League or League 2 who knows? But to do that you need these big solutions. You do need to dream but you’ve got to get up in the morning and do the work. If you daydream that’s when you’re in trouble.

“Yes, it’s a big football club dream but this has plenty of merit behind it because we have the partners in place, we have a brown-field site that could use development. It’s not a modern fit-for-purpose environmentally friendly modern brown-field site at the moment, it does need work in some guise so hopefully we can solve that with this development.”