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Charlton Athletic's Johnnie Jackson writes for the KM Group

Johnnie Jackson
Johnnie Jackson

There was a strange 90 seconds or so up at Carlisle United on Saturday.

I was asking the bench during the last minute of the game if they knew the Sheffield Wednesday score and whether they knew or not, they weren’t about to tell us!

Then the whistle blew and the fans came running on – they were telling us that we were up but we still didn’t really believe it.

Eventually, the news filtered through that Wednesday had drawn against Colchester and the feeling was indescribable.

It’s been a long, tough season and that moment was the one we had all been working toward.

Before the game, I didn’t entirely believe that promotion was going to come up at Carlisle, not least because Wednesday have been doing so well but we were all sure that it was eventually going to come.

I suppose I should say thank you to my old club for holding Wednesday to a draw.

During my first season at Notts County, I won promotion from League 2 and that’s the closest feeling to this.

This is different, though. This is League 1 and I’m at a club that I love, that I’m settled at and that I’m captaining.

To lead this club to promotion is a dream come true. Of course, we know the job is not quite complete – we need to go on and get a winners’ medal before we can really start celebrating.

The Sheffield clubs have given it a good go this year and to get consecutive wins against them in January gave us an incredible sense of belief.

That week in January, when we got six points against Wednesday and then Sheffield United, feels quite significant. You can look back at it now and say we’ve beaten United twice and we’re six points ahead of them.

Now we just want to keep winning. With three games to go, we need four more points to be champions.

There is a real resilience about the side – the fans will have seen that many times this season.

We’ve built on a solid foundation of defence, and if there’s one thing these boys know how to do, it’s defend.

When we’ve been second best, we’ve still managed to get results but that’s what will happen when you keep 20 clean sheets in a season.

At the other end, Yann Kermorgant and Bradley Wright-Phillips have been brilliant but we have had the ability to get goals from all over the pitch.

Finally, as captain, I have to say that the support from our fans this season has been unbelievable.

Next year we will give the Championship a good go, that’s for sure.

But let’s win the title first!

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