Swindon returned to Wembley for the first time since 1969 for the Division Two Play-Off final, and were promoted to the top flight of English football for the first time in their history, after a 1-0 win over Sunderland.
After Sunderland created a couple of openings in the first ten minutes, Swindon controlled the game from then on. Steve White had three opportunities to open the scoring - first, he fired a shot over the bar, then he was denied a goal by a flying save by Tony Norman. The worst was to come after 19 minutes, when White intercepted a backpass, rounded the 'keeper, and pushed the ball towards the goal. Chalky looked on in horror as the ball bounced back off the post, and Duncan Shearer just failed to connect with the rebound.
It wasn't long before Town made the breakthrough. On 26 minutes, Alan McLoughlin picked the ball up in midfield, and struck an ambitious shot towards goal from thirty yards. The ball took a wicked deflection off Sunderland defender Gary Bennett, and with Norman stranded, the ball looped over him and into the net.
Three more chances went begging before the half-time interval. After the break, though Sunderland came out with more purpose than they had shown in the first half, they still couldn't break down the Swindon defence. Shearer and White had two opportunities each to put the game beyond doubt, but in each case they were denied by a mixture of good goalkeeping and poor finishing.
After an agonising three minutes of injury-time, the ref blew the final whistle, and Swindon's achievement of being promoted from the Fourth to the First Division in five seasons was complete.
The joy was short-lived however, as just ten days later, the Football League demoted the Town by two divisions for illegal payments to players, which was reduced to one on appeal. The plea to "punish the guilty, not the fans" went unheard, and Swindon would have to wait another three years for their first taste of top flight football.
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