Notts County return to League One after eleven years

The Wembley scoreboard finished on 3-0 on Monday 25 May 2026: Alassana Jatta on 32 minutes, Lucas Ness just before the break and Jodi Jones on 70. In front of 30,851 spectators, Notts County won the League Two play-off final against Salford City and secured promotion to the third tier of English football for the first time in eleven years.

This Saturday, 15 August, at 12:30 and live on Sky Sports, Meadow Lane hosts Leicester City on the opening day of the 2026-27 League One season. A Premier League champion away at the club usually described as the oldest in professional football. The third tier rarely serves up a fixture like it.

Wembley, 25 May: three goals and eleven years

The final was never in doubt. Jatta opened the scoring on the half hour, Ness added a second at the end of the first half and Jones put the game to bed just past the hour. Salford City never found a way back into it and were left facing an eighth straight season in League Two. Their ownership group has been fronted since May 2025 by David Beckham and Gary Neville, after the original Class of 92 consortium was reshaped, so the defeat came with a shot of the directors' box that travelled around the world.

Notts County's route to that final was a tight one. In the semi-final they won 1-0 at Chesterfield through a Jayden Luker goal and then held out for a 0-0 at Meadow Lane to go through 1-0 on aggregate. On the other side, Salford City needed extra time in the second leg against Grimsby Town: 2-2 on the night and 4-3 on aggregate, with Kallum Cesay scoring late in the additional half-hour.

"The oldest professional club in the world": the small print

Notts County were founded in 1862 and are routinely described as the oldest professional football club in the world. Sky Sports used exactly that phrase in its report on the final, and it is the formula used by the club itself and by the Nottingham press for decades.

It is worth being precise about what that label means, because it is very often repeated wrongly. The oldest club in the world of any kind is Sheffield FC, founded in 1857 and recognised by FIFA and by the Football Association as the first independent football club in history; the BBC describes it in those terms too. The difference lies in one adjective: Sheffield FC were born amateur and stayed amateur, while Notts County took up professionalism and still compete as a professional club. The two records sit side by side because they measure different things. Any headline calling Notts County simply "the oldest club in the world" is skipping that word.

What is not open to argument is the rest of the file. In 1888, Notts County were one of the twelve founder members of the Football League. In 1894 they won their only FA Cup, beating Bolton Wanderers 4-1 at Goodison Park, and in doing so became the first team from outside the top flight to lift the trophy.

The black and white shirt has carried a story for more than a century: that Juventus adopted their stripes after receiving a set of kits sent from Nottingham in the early twentieth century. The published versions differ on the date and on who acted as go-between, so it is best treated as what it is, a tale repeated across generations rather than a settled fact.

2019 and 2023: out of the EFL and back again

On 4 May 2019, on the final day of the League Two season, Notts County lost 3-1 at Swindon. Kane Hemmings had made it 0-1 from the spot on 52 minutes, but Kaiyne Woolery and a Theo Robinson double turned the game around in the last third. At the same time, Macclesfield Town drew 1-1 with Cambridge United and stayed up by three points. Notts County went down to the National League, ending an unbroken run in the Football League that began in 1888.

The return came four seasons later, and at Wembley again. On 13 May 2023, the National League play-off final against Chesterfield finished 2-2 after extra time, with Rúben Rodrigues equalising in the second period, and was settled on penalties. Goalkeeper Archie Mair, brought on specifically for the shootout, saved two and Notts County won 4-3. In their first season back in League Two they finished fourteenth.

Eleven seasons without setting foot in League One

The third tier is another chapter. Notts County had not played in League One since the 2014-15 season, when they went down on the final day as well. Between that relegation and promotion last May there are eleven complete seasons outside the division, four of them outside the EFL altogether.

80 points and an extremely tight League Two

The top of League Two in 2025-26 was settled by the narrowest of margins. Bromley took the title on 87 points and went up to the third tier for the first time in their history. MK Dons finished on 86 and Cambridge United on 82, completing the three automatic promotions. The four play-off places went to Salford City on 81, Notts County on 80, Chesterfield on 79 and Grimsby Town on 78. Two points separated fifth from third: automatic promotion was there for the taking and slipped away.

That side's manager, Martin Paterson, had arrived at Meadow Lane in June 2025. It was his first full season as a head coach; before that he had only managed Burton Albion for half a year, in the second half of 2023-24. The squad he assembled ended up going up the longest way possible, the one that demands three extra matches after forty-six league games.

The 2026-27 season has already started

Even before the league began, Notts County had already played their first competitive match of the season. On 8 August, in the first round of the Carabao Cup, they drew 1-1 at Turf Moor against Burnley, relegated from the Premier League in April, with Callum Roberts scoring on the stroke of half-time. The tie went to penalties and the Nottingham club lost 4-3: goalkeeper Max Weiss saved two and Kyle Walker put away the decisive kick.

The league opener is on Saturday 15 August at Meadow Lane, at 12:30, against Leicester City. The visitors were Premier League champions in 2015-16 and arrive in the third tier after two successive relegations: it is only the second time in their 142-year history that they have competed at this level. For Notts County, it is the sort of fixture that justifies eleven years of waiting.

""This is my first full year and I am emotionally tired," Paterson said after the final, in comments carried by the EFL and the British press."

Notts County return to the third tier with the squad that won promotion the long way round and a fixture list that opens against one of the biggest budgets in the division. How this ends is exactly the sort of question you can answer by simulating it.

• Simulate a full League Two, League One or Championship season and watch how the table looks week by week.
• Use the supercomputer to work out Notts County's promotion, title and relegation probabilities across 10,000 simulated seasons.
• Edit any result, starting with Notts County v Leicester City on 15 August, and watch the table recalculate instantly.
• Fill in the FA Cup and Carabao Cup brackets to see how far the club can go in the cups.