Anthony Cook has described the emotional rollercoaster which saw him sent off in the play-off final before returning to celebrate promotion with his team-mates.

Ebbsfleet and Chelmsford were drawing 0-0 in first-half stoppage-time when Cook lunged in to tackle Josh Rees in the centre circle.

City's players reacted angrily, Michael Spillane shoving Cook to the floor, and referee Richard Hulme showed the winger a straight red card.

"I’ve reacted to a loose pass being played," Cook said. "I’m going towards him and he’s going away.

"I’ve seen the replay. My standing foot’s gone in front of him, I’ve gone with my right leg and I’ve slipped. I know I got the ball, I didn’t get much of him but I saw where my foot landed afterwards. It looked very reckless.

"When I landed, after I got the ball, I saw my two feet up and thought that could potentially be a red card. When I pulled the ref to the side, he said "It’s caused a lot of commotion and I have no choice, it’s two-footed.”

"I can’t lie, I love this club and we've been working so hard, so I cried at half-time.

"The gaffer came in, saw me and told me to to go the physio room, man up and get behind the boys.

"Going 1-0 down, I heard the cheers and I was gutted but when I heard the equaliser, I thought, you know what, we’ve got a bunch of men out there and if anyone can do this, it’s us - and we did."

With Cook still in the bowels of the old main stand, Dave Winfield's header cancelled out Bagasan Graham's deflected opener for Chelmsford to level the final at 1-1.

Cook snuck back to pitchside and was just in time to see Darren McQueen score the winner.

He said: "I’m so relieved. If we didn’t win, I would have felt I was guilty for it.

"We’ve been through it way too many times. We’ve had a good season, personally and collectively as a team. Not to go up would have been a kick in the proverbials.

"I’d never won the play-offs so that goes through your head as well.

"When I got sent off, I was thinking “not again”. I was thinking “I don’t know what I’ll do if we don’t win this” but I don’t have to think about that any more because we’ve gone up.

"It’s been an emotional rollercoaster for me and as a club, we went through everything, going down to 10 men, going 1-0 down and it shows the strength and character of the boys that we’ve got in that dressing-room to get the victory."