Ben's winner on the House as Eastleigh progress in FA Cup

Spitfires, who trailed 3-0 in the first tie at Silverlake Stadium on Saturday before forcing a replay, were 2-0 up at Folkestone on Tuesday thanks to goals from Tom Whelan and Jake Hesketh.

But Invicta, who had Josh Vincent sent off on 54 minutes, responded with strikes from Adeoye Yusuff and Scott Heard to set up extra-time.

Strevens’s side earned their place in the first-round proper when Ben House netted the winner after 115 minutes.

Strevens told the club website: “It’s just the magic of the FA Cup and the main thing is we are in the first round now. We have made proper hard work of it.

“At 3.45pm on Saturday, I was probably the worst manager going. The players were probably the team that would get embarrassed the most in the FA Cup by getting a giant-killing.

“Somehow on Saturday they turned it around to get the draw, and somehow we managed to get through on Tuesday in a game which we made hard work of.

“At the moment it just seems like every mistake we are making or every opportunity just seems to be going in the back of our net.

“I just said to the boys we have got to fight tooth and nail to stop the goals going in.

“That’s not being disrespectful to Folkestone, I thought over the two games they were absolutely brilliant, a credit to their league, credit to the manager and everything they did.”

He added: “We needed extra-time and probably Housey’s hardest chance of the day he takes.

“In the 90 minutes we missed some chances, we should have scored lots of goals - their goalkeeper pulled off some fantastic saves as well.

“But we are through. We have got Boreham Wood in round one now and there are plenty of other managers that would like to be in the position we are in.

“The main thing is we’ve got through.”

Eastleigh’s victory earned them £9,375 in prize money. They will face Boreham Wood on the weekend of Saturday, November 6.