{"id":694352,"date":"2026-05-25T22:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T22:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/694352\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T22:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T22:03:11","slug":"notts-county-cruise-into-league-one-with-emphatic-win-over-salford-league-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/694352\/","title":{"rendered":"Notts County cruise into League One with emphatic win over Salford | League Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

Football\u2019s oldest professional club continued to clamber back up the divisions in the final match of the English domestic season. Alassana Jatta\u2019s injection of higher echelon quality began a Notts County<\/a> stroll in baking Wembley sunshine. Salford melted away while Lucas Ness\u2019s towering header and Jodi Jones\u2019s second-half goal confirmed County\u2019s return to League One after an 11-year absence.<\/p>\n

Salford, club of the Class of 92, facing County was celebrity versus tradition. Not that Salford lack football heritage within their ownership, nowadays Gary Neville and Sir David Beckham, with further former Manchester United notables lending helping hands. Beckham, furthering the A-lister trend of club ownership by co-owning two, was in the posh seats, along from Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt.<\/p>\n

County do not eschew modernity either, their Danish owners are leading lights in data analytics. Having spent four years in non-league until 2023, with two promotions in four seasons, County\u2019s is a redemption arc for a club relegated from the top division in 1991-2, before the Premier League year zero.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou talk about desire, this is stuff you can\u2019t qualify,\u201d said Martin Paterson, the County manager, a former assistant at Beckham\u2019s Inter Miami. \u201cHow do you turn up at Wembley and perform? I don\u2019t have the answers, my players were excellent.\u201d<\/p>\n

County set about their task at quite a lick, Jones, their impressive, buzzy Maltese No 10, at the heart. In temperatures approaching 36C, Karl Robinson\u2019s team sweated cobs in chasing shadows. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to be brutal when they have given their all this season,\u201d he said of his players. \u201cIncredible heat at certain stages; it was burning through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those travelling south from Nottingham shared their disapproval of Neville and Salford\u2019s low turnout; Wembley\u2019s South Stand was three-quarters empty, Salford fans numbering about 5,000 of an overall 30,851.<\/p>\n

Former Everton full-back Luke Garbutt\u2019s left-foot diagonals were Salford\u2019s key weapon. After Garbutt\u2019s disappointing corner fell straight into the arms of James Belshaw, Jones\u2019s curving pass \u2013 a beauty \u2013 found Jatta. The finish was firm, though the Salford goalkeeper, Matt Young, will have his regrets.<\/p>\n

Lucas Ness scores Notts County\u2019s second goal. Photograph: Ian Tuttle\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

In the regular season they finished a point and a place above County, Salford beat them home and away. Wembley saw no repeat, Salford were well beaten and boiled over. Haji Mnoga\u2019s challenge on Jones might have been a red card with a video assistant referee on duty. Punishment enough swiftly arrived when Ness won the aerial battle after Rod McDonald\u2019s up and under. Cue TV pictures of a rictus, camera-aware Beckham.<\/p>\n

From the break, County optimised the conditions, squeezing play into the shaded section of Wembley turf as Salford desperation took hold. Robinson made reinforcements, including Fabio Borini, once of Liverpool, Chelsea, Roma and Milan. Raising their game in a different climate to rainy Kersal proved beyond Salford. \u201cWe have big dreams and big hopes and we didn\u2019t fill any of them,\u201d said Robinson.<\/p>\n

Conor Grant, a second-half arrival, supplied the clincher, his cutback for Jones\u2019s finish followed by a maniacal celebration. \u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of family things going on,\u201d explained Jones, once of Senrab, the east London nursery club that produced John Terry, Ledley King and Ezri Konsa among others. Jones first joined County in 2023 when Robinson loaned him from Oxford United. \u201cIt is the most fun I\u2019ve had all season,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Salford City co-owners David Beckham and Gary Neville look dejected, with former Manchester United teammate Paul Scholes after the final. Photograph: Andrew Boyers\/Action Images\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Neville\u2019s and Beckham\u2019s expressions bore the cruelty of the playoffs, the innate difficulties of lower division football. \u201cPaul\u2019s been in,\u201d said Robinson of Scholes. \u201cWe\u2019ll have conversations,\u201d he said of his co-owners. League One is the boundary the Salford project has yet to cross. It welcomes back Notts County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Football\u2019s oldest professional club continued to clamber back up the divisions in the final match of the English…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-694352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}