Eastleigh chairman Stewart Donald is hoping to see a bumper crowd at the Silverlake Stadium tonight for their first Vanarama Conference Premier home match against Aldershot Town.

The Bridle Insurance head, who has bankrolled the club since late December 2011, has been overseeing developments on and off the pitch this summer as the Spitfires embark on a historic first in the top-flight of non-league football. And following the 3-0 win at Nuneaton Town on Saturday, Donald, pictured right, is looking forward to welcoming, what he hopes, will be a big crowd at Stoneham Lane.

“We’re ready for it,” he said about the Shots match, which is live on BT Sport.

“Hopefully everyone in Hampshire will see a good result. I am hoping lots of people will come down and have a look at what’s going on with our very exciting project.”

With Eastleigh being shown on the small screen for the first time in their history, there will be added excitement to the occasion. “Going on TV is another first for Eastleigh – that’s obviously very exciting for us,” said Donald.

“We have just got to keep going this season and hope the town comes along with us.

“We’re at just over 700 season tickets and we’re very pleased with that.

“That’s a lot of new ones, so we couldn’t have asked more – we’ve doubled our season ticket sales.

“Hopefully we can capture the imagination of a few and make it up to a 1,000 through the season.”

Donald watched on at Liberty Way, where Jai Reason, Craig Stanley and Ben Strevens netted to get Eastleigh off to the perfect start.

And the chairman was impressed with what he saw.

“I think if we had got a point from the first game, just to get us going, then we probably would have taken it,” he said.

“But I thought we did well to get all three points. We looked good.

“All the new players did well, Constable and Midson led the line well, Stanley looked like he knew where to be – he scored a lovely goal.

“And Reid was immense in defence.”