Three years ago, Notts County were in the National League. They had been there for the previous five seasons, a fallen Football League founder member trying to remember what it felt like to play meaningful football at a level above Step 1. The fall had been steady. The recovery was not guaranteed.
On Sunday 25 May 2026, in front of a Wembley crowd that was loud in the way only play-off finals are loud, Notts County beat Salford City 3-0. Alassana Jatta. Lucas Ness. Jodi Jones. Goals at the right end of a season-defining game. They are back in League One for the first time since 2015 — an eleven-year absence ended in ninety minutes against a Salford side backed by David Beckham and Gary Neville's money and unable to find a way past Notts County's superior football.
This is the pyramid working.
What the journey actually looked like
Notts County's 2022-23 National League title is the kind of season non-league fans will be telling their grandchildren about. 107 points. A relentless campaign in which the question was not whether they would win the league but by how many points. Promoted back to the Football League. Two years of consolidation in League Two. Then a play-off run that ended at Wembley with three goals against a side built to spend its way into the EFL.
Three seasons. Step 1 to League One. That isn't a typical non-league exit trajectory. The default for clubs that escape the National League is several years of stabilising in League Two, then maybe a tilt at promotion if the right manager arrives. Notts have compressed that timeline by about half.
How they got it done
The team Martin Paterson assembled this season knew exactly what it was for. Jatta and Jones, in particular, are the kind of forwards who terrify League Two defences — quick, ruthless, calm in the box. Ness adds an aerial threat from set pieces that you cannot prepare for in midweek without burning your week's planning time on it.
Defensively, Notts conceded the second-fewest goals in League Two. The shape under Paterson is unfussy. Two banks of four. Press selectively. Win second balls. Play forward when the chance presents itself. None of it is revolutionary. All of it is well-drilled.
That's what wins play-off finals. Not flair. Not narrative. Drilled, well-rested players doing the things they've been doing all season, at the only ground where a single match this size happens.
What Salford lost
Salford City are an interesting story regardless of result. The Class of '92 ownership group has spent ten years trying to build a Football League club at the EFL's basement. They've climbed from the Northern Premier League to League Two and stayed there. Their best season was their first, when promotion to League Two came on a wave of momentum and documentary cameras. Subsequent seasons have been steadier — mid-table, occasionally pushing for the play-offs.
This year they made the play-off final. Wembley. The biggest stage Salford have played on. And they lost 3-0 to a side that had been in non-league as recently as three summers ago.
The Beckham connection generates the headlines. The reality at this level is that the people who win League Two play-off finals are usually the ones with the best pre-season recruitment, the most stable manager, and the squad that's been there longest. Notts County have all three. Salford have been rebuilding, gradually, for years — and their owners have made it clear in interviews that the project is long-term.
But long-term means losing finals sometimes.
What Notts County going up means
For the National League and its watchers, Notts County's return to League One is a useful answer to the question that gets asked too often: does the pyramid actually work?
The pyramid works when clubs that fall through it can climb back up through it. Notts County have done that. So have York City, this season, who lifted the National League title in the 103rd minute at Rochdale. So have Worthing FC, who reached Step 1 for the first time in their history. Hornchurch did it via the play-offs. Kidderminster did it twice in three years.
When the pyramid works, it isn't only good for the clubs that climb. It's good for the level below them. It creates aspirations. It demonstrates that the way back up exists. It gives the volunteers in Step 4 and Step 5 a reason to keep marking the pitch on a wet Wednesday in January.
Notts County aren't a non-league club anymore. They probably won't be again. But for the people who watched them at Meadow Lane during those five National League years — the volunteers, the regulars, the people who turned up when there was nothing to play for and very little to enjoy — what happened at Wembley on 25 May 2026 is the answer to a question they had stopped asking aloud.
The pyramid works. Sometimes it takes a decade. Sometimes the journey runs through the National League. Sometimes you come back stronger.
Three years from non-league to League One. Six months until the new season. Notts County have earned their summer.
Up the volunteers. Non-league — making the difference.
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