Eastleigh Chairman Outlines Big Plans

Donald has pumped over £10m into the Spitfires since becoming owner five years ago, significantly improving the Silverlake Stadium and increasing the playing budget.

The ambitious chairman has outlined more developments for the coming months but also backed manager Richard Hill to succeed - with the team loitering in the bottom half of the National League - and admitted to his own mistakes.

In a revealing interview with BBC Radio Solent, he said: "We want to get into the League, then we want to get into League One, then we want to see whether we can ultimately get into the Championship.

"We want to do that and the investment around the place shows we're serious about that and we'll continue with that.

"I came in with an original five-year plan and I was hell bent on achieving it and as it got towards the end I just threw more and more money at it, and that was the wrong thing to do.

"I think all I would say to everyone is, being an Eastleigh manager, no matter who it is and what the structure is, I have not made it as easy as I should have done by being over eager. We need to get that corrected.

"What happened before was that Richard [Hill, manager] bought really good players for a sensible amount of money and he got us out of the league [National League South]. He can spot a good player and with a bit of patience and a bit of understanding that there is a bit of work with the squad still, I think he can do it again."

On improvements to their ground, Donald added: "The next stage I think is to finish the stand down the side and see if we can come all the way along with it and then fill the corners in on those two sides whilst then potentially changing the green stand.

"At the moment, we're just deciding but we may well change that to a permanent terrace with bars underneath so that the noisy element of the fanbase can go there and make some real acoustics and have all the facilities they've got in the club house under there.

"The plans will go in for that in the coming weeks with a view that we will try and have that done for the start of next season but the way we go we'll aim for start of next season but it will be half way through I imagine!"

For more coverage, reaction and some of the best moments from games going throughout the season, head to our social media channels on Twitter, Facebook and now Instagram.