The Biggest Premier League Promotion Success Stories in the 2000s
Today, promotion to the English Premier League is said to be worth a minimum of £200 million to clubs over the course of at least two seasons. Although this game-changing amount of money hasn’t always been on offer, the Premier League has always been the most lucrative league in football’s modern era.
In this article, we’re going to explore the teams who’ve secured surprise promotions out of the English Football League (EFL) and into the ‘promised land’ of the Premier League against all odds.
Ipswich Town (2023/24)
Kieran McKenna and Ipswich Town achieved the dream of back-to-back automatic promotions from League One to the Premier League last season. Although the Suffolk club is plenty big enough to hold its own in the top flight, the manner of the promotion makes this one of the finest promotion success stories of a generation. They finished above two of the three relegated Premier Leagues with budgets four or five times the size of Ipswich’s. They finished with 96 points and suffered just six defeats in 46 games. That was after racking up 98 points the previous year in League One, too!
The Tractor Boys are naturally one of the favourites to go down in the latest EPL odds, although sportsbooks currently consider them to have a better chance of avoiding the drop than the two other promoted clubs from last season, Southampton and Leicester City.
They made a positive impression on the opening day against Liverpool, with plenty of fans sure to have been viewing Reds-related novelty gifts in the lead up to Town’s first game back in the Premier League since 2001/02.
Luton Town (2022/23)
Luton Town appointed the former boss of their fiercest rivals, Watford, in the shape of Rob Edwards ahead of the 2022/23 EFL Championship season. Edwards transformed the Hatters into a lean, mean machine, losing just eight games on the way to a third-place finish in the table. Luton secured a playoff semi-final spot against Sunderland. They battled and bruised their way past the Black Cats, comprehensively winning the second leg at Kenilworth Road to set up a playoff final with Coventry City.
The game finished 1-1 after extra time, with the drama continuing into the penalty shootout. Coventry’s Fankaty Dabo missed from 12 yards to send Luton to the Premier League for the first time since its inauguration in 1992. It’s an incredible feat given that Luton were in the fifth tier of English football as recently as 2013/14.
Blackpool (2009/10)
Under charismatic boss Ian Holloway, Blackpool rapidly became every football fan’s second favourite team. The plucky Tangerines played an all-out-attack style which guaranteed to entertain the neutrals. Holloway steered the team to a top six finish in the 2009/10 season, securing a playoff semi-final against Nottingham Forest.
Forest had narrowly missed out on automatic promotion, so were clearly going into the two-legged tie with Blackpool on a downer. The Tangerines won both legs to win 6-4 on aggregate, clinching a place in the Wembley final. They’d go on to win a five-goal thriller against Cardiff, etching Holloway’s name in Blackpool folklore. Holloway and Blackpool went on to bloody some Premier League noses in their debut season, starting the campaign strongly before tailing off to eventual relegation.
Reading (2005/06)
The Royals had no top-flight pedigree to speak of going into the 2005/06 season. Under the unassuming character of Steve Coppell, Reading stunned the football world to not just win promotion to the Premier League but win the league with complete and utter domination.
Reading finished the campaign top of the pile with an eye-watering 106 points. They set a record points tally, beating Sunderland’s previous record by a single point. With just two defeats all season, the Royals went into the 2006/07 Premier League season with an air of invincibility. They ended up finishing eighth in their debut campaign, which was another remarkable feat.
This quartet of teams have forever etched their name in the legacy of the EFL, with underdog stories that’ll be told for generations to come.