Relief, euphoria and pride – Nathan Jones revels in Charlton's play-off win
Macaulay Gillesphey scored the only goal of the League One play-off final against Leyton Orient at Wembley that saw Charlton return to the second tier after a five-year absence.
Gillesphey curled home a superb free-kick in the 31st minute to seal a 1-0 victory over their London rivals, to the delight of around 40,000 Charlton fans in a crowd of 76,193.
Jones, who took charge of Charlton in February 2024, said: 'It's a massive relief, the euphoria and masses of pride.
'We've given it to a club that was going backwards and we had to arrest that before we could take it forward.
'It's not just the results that have got us to the Championship, it's the way we've done it. How we built and galvanised the football club and got everyone back to believing that Charlton can be a great club again. Because it is a great club with great people throughout.
'I'm just so proud of the football club, everyone, the fans. We had 44 or 45,000 fans here. The owners were here today, they bought a shell of a club and now they are seeing something totally different.
'You cannot quantify the amount of work that has gone on. Every single sleepless night, phone calls on holiday, the number of times I've slept at the training ground and my family have had to sacrifice not seeing me.
'The players have worked incredibly hard, they've had to sacrifice a lot, they had to put up with me demanding and demanding and that's not easy at times.'
Orient boss Richie Wellens, meanwhile, was philosophical as he now plans ahead for next season's League One campaign, admitting they probably are not yet ready for Championship football.
'It was a cagey affair,' he said. 'I thought we had the better of the possession and had control but when you start like we did, and it was cagey from both teams, and then a moment goes against you, it's difficult.
'But we had enough time after that to pull it round and I thought in stages, we played some good football.
'But it was one of those games when nothing really happened but a free-kick went in that probably shouldn't have gone in. Maybe the position of our goalkeeper was not right but everyone makes mistakes.
Hear from Richie Wellens, following today's play-off final defeat at Wembley Stadium.
Full interview 👇#LOFC #OneOrient
— Leyton Orient FC (@leytonorientfc) May 25, 2025
'Are we ready to go up to the Championship? We would have gone up today had we won but are we ready as a club? We probably need more time.
'I don't think we crossed the ball enough in the last 25 minutes, I thought that just before we had the interruption with the VAR problem that we had the momentum and we looked like we were about to score.
'We are a growing club and yes it's disappointing to lose but I'm more gutted that I probably won't be able to work with some of our exciting young loan players again.
'Look at Charlton, they are a big club, big stadium and all the facilities in place and they are ready to go up to the Championship.'
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