Charlton Athletic 1-0 Leyton Orient: Gillesphey free-kick enough to earn Championship promotion

Charlton Athletic are back in the Championship for the first time in five years after a 1-0 victory over Leyton Orient in the League One play-off final.

Macauley Gillesphey scored the only goal of the game with a 31st-minute free-kick, which he bent around the wall and into the far side of the net.

The game itself was one of few chances and little quality, with neither team taking control as the magnitude of the prize on offer seemed to weigh heavily.

In the second half, Leyton Orient did have two big chances to get level through Jack Currie, whose deflected effort went out for a corner. Jordan Brown then smashed a shot just over the bar from the resulting corner.

In the 62nd minute, League One Golden Boot winner Charlie Kelman came closest to equalising after his shot ricocheted off a Charlton defender and struck the crossbar.

The remainder of the half was primarily played around Charlton’s goal, although Orient goalkeeper Josh Keeley had to be aware to keep out efforts from Conor Coventry and Chuks Aneke.

A failure in communication technology from the officials led to a break in play during the final 10 minutes, which resulted in 11 minutes of stoppage time.

But the Addicks were able to repel Leyton Orient’s shelling of the ball into the box in the final knockings of the match to earn promotion back to the second tier.

THE. ADDICKS. ARE. BACK. #cafc pic.twitter.com/hQ9eTOcAmw

— Charlton Athletic FC (@CAFCofficial) May 25, 2025

Data debrief: Quality at a at Wembley

Leyton Orient managed just one shot on target in defeat in the play-off final, despite peppering 16 shots on Charlton’s goal in total.

Charlton, meanwhile, were not much better in of attacking ingenuity, having won the game after ing an expected goals (xG) of just 0.17.

The clean sheet for Charlton was their 23rd of the season, including the play-offs – only Wrexham (24) kept more clean sheets in League One.