Eastleigh

Eastleigh gave its name to a football club that began somewhere else. On 22 May 1946, in the Fleming Arms pub in Swaythling, a Southampton district a few miles south, a group of local men formed Swaythling Athletic, and the side played its earliest matches on Southampton Common. The Hampshire League took the club in 1950; the name was shortened to Swaythling in 1977, and only in 1980 did it become Eastleigh, the town it has represented ever since.

Decades in Hampshire's amateur leagues gave way to a sharper trajectory once Paul Doswell took charge in 2002. He worked the club through three promotions in successive seasons, the run capped by a 2004 play-off final win over Leyton in the Isthmian League Premier Division that carried Eastleigh into Conference South. A decade later, in 2013–14, the club won Conference South outright and reached the Conference Premier — now the National League — for the first time, still the highest level it has played.

The Spitfires moved into Ten Acres, a ground also sold under sponsorship as the Silverlake Stadium. Havant & Waterlooville have become the sharpest of the club's rivalries, with Basingstoke Town and Aldershot Town filling out the Hampshire fixture list. Jack Payne, captain since 2019, has passed 100 appearances; Ben Reeves, a Southampton academy product capped by Northern Ireland, joined in 2024.

Ten Acres holds 5,192, of which 2,700 seats are covered.