Former Luton boss labels Charlton’s play-off win as his ‘biggest success’
Ex-Hatters boss Nathan Jones labelled winning promotion to the Championship with Charlton Athletic on Sunday as the ‘biggest success’ of his career.
The 51-year-old first took charge of the Hatters back in January 2016 when he was able to finish second in League Two and then left with the club in the League One promotion race three years later. An unsuccessful stint at Stoke City followed, before he was back at Kenilworth Road in May 2020, masterminding a Great Escape as Town avoided relegation back to the third tier, then having two more seasons in which he was beaten in the play-offs, losing 2-1 to Huddersfield Town on aggregate.
Jones left Bedfordshire again in November 2022 to take over at Premier League Southampton, but was sacked after just three months as he struggled to gain the results he wanted at St Mary’s. As a player, the Welshman won promotion three times with Brighton & Hove Albion, but having taken over the Addicks in February 2024, and finishing fourth in the table this term, they saw off Wycombe Wanderers 1-0 in the semi-finals, before Macaulay Gillesphey’s first half free kick was enough to secure a place in the second tier as they defeated Leyton Orient 1-0 at the home of English football.
Unfortunately there will be no reunion with the Hatters, Town dropping out of the Championship via the relegation trapdoor, but speaking about his achievement since taking over at the Valley, Jones said: “This is categorically my biggest success, regardless of going to the Premier League being promoted as a player. This is different with 44,000 singing. It’s pride. I just wanted to take everything in because moments like this don’t happen often unless you’re Pep Guardiola or Carlo Ancelotti. It was a fantastic spectacle played in the right manner, we could’ve been more fluid but I don’t care.”
“I’m so proud of everyone involved in the football club. The players are a huge credit they’ve gone through some stuff, and they’ve had to make sacrifices to put up with me and the demands I set at times. It’s unfathomable how much work has gone into this. Every single time I’ve slept at the training ground, everything all my family have sacrificed. It’s so much work, but we do it for moments like this.
“A young Welshman maybe wasn’t big enough for Southampton but I’m big enough for Charlton. I didn’t drop to League One to be a League One manager, I went to League One to manage Charlton. We have to build now. We have to improve on every single level, and then we’ll be competitive at the level we think we should be at.”
