Promoted Clubs Who Survived Their First Season Back After A Long Absence
- Aug 18
- 2 min read
Coventry City won the 2025-26 Championship with 95 points and 97 goals, ending a 25-year wait to return to the Premier League. Frank Lampard's side went up as champions with three games to spare, and their reward is a fixture list full of grounds they haven't visited in the league since 2001, with markets like the Arsenal vs Coventry odds giving a sense of the step up ahead.
History suggests that step is where returning clubs come unstuck. Ipswich Town came back in 2024-25 after 22 years away and went down at the first attempt. Luton Town did the same in 2023-24, having been out of the top flight since 1992.
Last season was kinder to the promoted sides. Leeds United secured survival with three games to spare and finished 14th, eight points clear of the bottom three, while Sunderland went further. Back in the top flight after eight years away, the Black Cats took seventh place on 54 points and qualified for the Europa League.
In this article, we look at three clubs who came back after a long spell away and made it through.
Portsmouth, 2003-04
Portsmouth won the First Division title in 2002-03 with 98 points, returning to the top flight after 15 years away. Harry Redknapp’s side then finished 13th, and they were the only one of the three promoted clubs to stay up that season.
Pompey started quickly, sitting top of the table after three games, before drifting into the relegation places by midwinter.
Almost all of their season was built at Fratton Park. Portsmouth managed just two away wins across the entire campaign, but their home record carried them through, and they finished above Everton, Manchester City, Blackburn Rovers and Tottenham Hotspur. Yakubu scored 16 league goals in his first season in England.
Leeds United, 2020-21
Leeds United returned in 2020-21 after 16 years in the second tier, and Marcelo Bielsa took them to ninth with 59 points. No promoted side had bettered that tally since Ipswich Town in 2000-01.
Leeds scored 62 goals, the seventh-highest total in the division, with Patrick Bamford contributing 17 of them. They also took 30 points on the road, more than they managed at Elland Road, which is unusual for a newly promoted club. By the closing weeks they were closer to the European places than the relegation zone, though a season like that still leaves a promoted side a long way from the top 4 finish odds.
Nottingham Forest, 2022-23
Forest had been away the longest of the three at 23 years, and they came up through the play-offs after beating Huddersfield Town 1-0 at Wembley. The rebuild that followed was extreme, with 21 new players arriving in one summer window.
It made for an awkward first season. Forest finished 16th with 38 points, and 30 of those came at the City Ground. Survival was confirmed on the penultimate weekend with a 1-0 home win over Arsenal, who were still chasing the title at the time. It was not a comfortable season by any measure, but Forest got the result they needed when it arrived.