Spurs Ladies one win from promotion after comeback win over Charlton

Tottenham Hotspur Ladies are close — very close — to achieving securing promotion to the top flight of English women’s football after a superb come-from-behind victory at Charlton Athletic on Sunday morning. Down 2-0 after the first half to the then-third place Charlton, Spurs got a second half penalty goal from leading scorer Rianna Dean followed by a brace from left back Ashleigh Neville, including the match-winning header off of a corner in the 80th minute to secure the three points.

Spurs Ladies tweeted video of the winning goal by Neville, and you can see just how important this win was to the entire team.

After the match, manager Karen Hills and first team coach Juan Amaros took to Twitter to record a video thanking fans for their support and for coming out to see them play.

It’s hard to understate just how important this win was. Spurs’ last two matches are both on the road — at Aston Villa on May 1, and a potentially dramatic trip to third place Durham (and Spurs’ main rival for promotion) on May 12. Spurs can clinch promotion with a win over Villa or if Durham falls to Leicester next Sunday. Should Spurs drop points to Villa and Durham beat Leicester, it could set up a nervy potential play-in match for promotion on May 12. Manchester United have already clinched promotion and the league title.

Promotion could be the spark that completely transforms Spurs Ladies; in recent minutes of the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust from March, club officials stated that the club is undertaking a “full review” of the current relationship between THLFC and the parent organization due to the possibility of promotion, and noted the strong increase in support for Spurs Ladies the past few seasons. Nobody’s quite sure what that means, but in order to accept promotion Spurs Ladies would need to transform into a fully professional club from the semi-pro side that it is now.