NEIL COTTON on how ambitious Eastleigh have taken huge steps over the last decade...

Ben Strevens nets Eastleigh’s winner from the spot against Crewe in the FA Cup

FOR National League side Eastleigh, joining the ranks of FA Cup giant-killers with a 1-0 first round victory over League One Crewe is just the latest stage of a journey which has, in little over a decade, seen them rise from the realm of one-man-and-  his-dog football to within touching distance of the Football League itself.

At the club’s Silverlake Stadium, a squat wooden hut, housing a bar and a hatch...