WHEN Richard Hill arrived at Eastleigh in September 2012, people would have thought he was living in cloud cuckoo land if he had predicted that, less than three years later, the club would finish fourth among the country’s non-League elite.

But seeing was believing at the Silverlake Stadium as the Spitfires booked a showdown with Grimsby Town in the Conference play-off semi-finals with an initially nervy but ultimately professional 2-1 victory over Kidderminster.

For those in the 4,024 crowd who were around during the Wessex League days, these are heady times indeed with the Spitfires just two games away from a Wembley promotion final and potential membership of the Football League and League 2 derbies with Portsmouth.

And even those who took the Spitfires to their hearts when they were an aspiring Conference South outfit could surely not have envisaged that Eastleigh would be leaving the likes of Macclesfield, Wrexham, Torquay and Lincoln trailing in their wake just 12 seasons after lifting the Wessex crown.

Speaking after second-half goals from Ben Strevens and James Constable had wiped out the nightmare of conceding after just 51 seconds against Kidderminster, Hill smiled: “Let’s put this is realistic terms. “This my third season.

“If I’d turned round to you all when I first came to the club and said we’d be fourth in the Conference Premier by the end of the third season, you would probably have gone and got someone in a white jacket to cart me off!

“But you look at the changes to the ground from then ’til now, the changes in personnel on the pitch, the facilities, the training ... everything we do is worlds apart.

“When the chairman (Stewart Donald) told me he wanted to take the team to full-time training, I told him this is what it would take and, to be fair, he’s put his hand in his pocket and done it.

“The massive change in this football club is unbelievable and our supporters must be pinching themselves to have a team in the Conference Premier play-offs.”

While some of those fans are already checking out train times for the Wembley final on May 17 (2pm), Hill is keeping his and his players thoughts strictly focussed on the two-legged semi-final against Grimsby.

Eastleigh will entertain the third-placed Mariners at the Silverlake this Thursday (7.45pm) and their destiny will be decided in the second leg on Sunday (3.30pm).

“It’s a good news story, but my job is to make sure the players don’t think the job is done,” said Hill. “Grimsby have beaten us twice in the league and going up there for the second leg is going to be a bit intimidating for us.”