buoyant Iffy Onuora and Ty Gooden were delighted with the way in which their Gillingham team scored two goals in the last seven minutes of extra time to snatch promotion to the First Division.

The Gills took the lead in the first half, but Wigan pulled one back after the break through Simon Haworth.

The northerners then had Kevin Sharp sent off in the closing minutes of normal time to make their Kent opponents clear favourites.

However, Stuart Barlow scored a penalty in the first period of extra time to give the Gills a nasty sense of play-off deja vu.

However, Peter Taylor's team produced a stirring fight-back to seal a deserved promotion and send Gooden and Onuora back to the division they departed in January when they left the County Ground.

Former Town hitman Onuora thought he had opened the scoring but his goal was later attributed to Wigan defender Pat McGibbon. The jubilant striker was not too concerned about the loss of his strike.

He said: We were a little bit worried but we got there in the end. The lads were ecstatic. We had a good night on Sunday and then we had an open top bus tour around the town yesterday morning.

Crowds packed the streets and it was my first time seeing anything like that.

I did my best to claim the goal but all the papers seem to have it down as an own goal. But at least I was there. I am really looking forward to playing Division One football again.

Winger Gooden was the man who made the winner when his cross from the left was powered home by the head of substitute Andy Thomson.

Gooden said: It was a dramatic finish. It was an unbelievable day and I am just pleased to have done it.

I looked around at some of our players after Wigan scored their second and I thought it was going to be their day.

But we have got a never-say-die spirit and I knew when we got one back that they would be the edgy ones. It was nice to get an assist and play my part for the winner.

Gooden has experienced an open-top parade before, when he was part of the Town team that won Division Twon in 1996.

He said: Winning at Wembley is the way to do it. It was a bit dramatic and we would rather have gone up automatically.