Charlton seal Championship spot after beating Leyton Orient in playoff final

London pride flowed south-east rather than east from Wembley. Charlton’s Valley rather than ­Leyton Orient’s Brisbane Road will be a Championship venue next season.

A free-kick from Macaulay Gillesphey proved enough, con­tinuing the comeback trail for Nathan Jones. In the aftermath the Addicks manager, as is his way, thanked his Lord by giving thanks to the skies. His team had proven his self-belief in his qualities as a manager when so many others have doubted him.

“I came here, wanted to build something, took a gamble, drop a division, drop two divisions, my last job was Premier League,” Jones said. “I knew we could build something … I don’t believe in the football gods, I believe in my God.”

Jones, after his troubled, ­misfiring, misun­derstood spell at ­Southampton, has been explicit that completing this mission was something akin to redemption. His opposite number, Richie Wellens – an ­experienced lower-league campaigner, a ­Wembley winner with ­Salford in the EFL ­Trophy – will just have to go again, take the positives from a season where his club pointed in the right direction.

“We’re a ­growing club, we’re a ­developing club,” Wellens said. “We have to realise where we have come from. We could easily have won that game but as a club we need more time.”

Wembley had been a sea of red, nearly 80,000 rocking with noise in lunchtime sun. Two clubs who have suffered while many of the ­capital’s clubs thrive had a chance to set things right: fourth facing sixth, the Addicks seven points superior in the regular season, winning both games. At Wembley, that gap often felt narrower, sometimes Rizla-thin as Orient pushed for a ­leveller. Addicks fans watched through their fingers before their agonies were ended.

“Masses of relief, lot of ­euphoria, a lot of pride,” Jones said. “It’s unquantifiable the works that’s gone in for a moment like this.” In the Cham­pionship, he will meet ­Southampton, the club where he said: “I just wasn’t accepted.”

The playoffs cannot be relied upon to echo a 46-game campaign but Charlton began with the greater aggression, as Jones’s teams – especially Luton – have usually exhibited. Set pieces, another Jones specialism, soon became the key battleground, eventually the deciding factor.

View image in fullscreen Macaulay Gillesphey (right) fires home Charlton’s first-half winner at Wembley. Photograph: Ben Whitley/PA

Initially, both teams showed the edginess that can clog these matches, impairing passes and manoeuvres usually a matter of course. ­Charlton looked to Matty Godden, their ­leading scorer, while Orient looked to Charlie Kelman, their equivalent. Kelman was restricted to six passes in a first half of frustration, Godden only three more. “It was one of those games where nothing really happened,” Wellens said.

Few players were given time to think. The freneticism continued until a break in play broke the seal. After a charging Tyreece Campbell was fouled, a free-kick chance presented itself. From an inside-left position Gillesphey, a classic journeyman once of Newcastle, Carlisle, Brisbane Roar and Plymouth, bent his left-foot shot round an insufficient wall and Orient’s keeper, Josh Keeley. Disappointment on Keeley’s face reflected the guilt of letting one in; both hands got close to the ball. “He’s got a wand of a left foot,” Godden said, hailing a centre-back of unlikely dead-ball proficiency. “I fancied it as soon as it come up and when it went in, ­buzzing,” said the scorer.

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“This is the biggest,” Jones said, reflecting on career achievements so far. Charlton’s brick-wall defence, with clean sheets in the semi-final with Wycombe, had seen it out. They set sail for the second tier, where they last played in pandemic times, with three ownerships since.

View image in fullscreen Nathan Jones shows his delight after Macaulay Gillesphey’s opener. Photograph: James Marsh/Shutterstock

The vanquished opponents have suffered just as hard. Orient’s absence from the second tier stretches back to 1982, including two seasons in the National League. Their attempt to end the absence saw them reduced to long-distance Hail Marys though two shots from Jack Currie flew narrowly, achingly wide. Here was Orient’s moment and Jones responded with changes to stem the flow, adding extra beef in Chuks Aneke and Micah Mbick. That preceded a lengthy break in play after officials suffered a communications breakdown. “Embarrassing,” Wellens said, Jones similarly dismissive: “VAR is supposed to make the game better.”

That added 11 minutes, but Orient had lost the snap that had Charlton previously on tenterhooks. When the Addicks keeper, Will Mannion, claimed a couple of ­unthreatening crosses, Jones knew his team were on their way. “We didn’t play well today, we just defended really, really well,” he said. Once victory was confirmed, having made sure to commiserate with Wellens, Jones took his moment of celebratory salvation. He and Charlton are back.

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