AMBITIOUS Eastleigh Football Club is aiming to succeed where Premier League Saints failed - by developing in the strategic gap between Eastleigh and Southampton.

Saints spent years and hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to build a new Dell at Stoneham before switching to an inner city site at St Mary's.

But Eastleigh FC - currently playing in the Jewson Wessex League - has applied to East-leigh council for permission to build a replacement clubhouse, a grandstand plus a health and fitness club at its Ten Acres Sports Ground in Stoneham Lane.

This is part of the club's ambition to win promotion to the Southern League and put East-leigh firmly on the soccer map.

But the rebuilding scheme depends on cash being raised from a land sale which would see a health and fitness suite - with a dance studio, play zone, swimming pool and children's pool plus a bar, lounge and changing facilities - being built on part of the Ten Acres site.

The planning application also seeks parking for 279 cars and a coach, and three tennis courts to double as an all-weather pitch facility. Eastleigh FC honorary general secretary Derik Brooks said the future of the club - founded as Swaythling Athletic 55 years ago - depended on the council approving the scheme.

He told the Daily Echo: "Like every club you have to be ambitious. I'm all for the club trying to obtain Southern League status. But the criteria laid down by the Southern League is quite tough. To progress, we have to improve our current facilities."

Mr Brooks said the redevelopment plans would involve selling part of the Ten Acre site which the club had occupied for 44 years. At this stage he could not reveal who would operate the leisure and fitness suite to be run as a separate business.

He said: "If we were in the Southern League, we would get an awful lot of exposure. Eastleigh itself would be more in the limelight. I think it would do the town good. The nearest other Southern League clubs are Bashley and Havant and Waterlooville."

Though the Ten Acres site was in the strategic gap between Eastleigh and Southampton, Mr Brooks said Eastleigh FC's plan was nowhere near the scale proposed by the Saints.

"This is for Eastleigh. Our club badge is the Eastleigh badge and we are proud of that. We hope the council will think that this is its club," he said.