League Round-Up: Canaries fly back to Championship

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Their season might have started with a 7-1 home defeat which brought about the departure of previous manager Bryan Gunn but Norwich City spent the weekend celebrating after clinching promotion back to the Championship on Saturday with a 1-0 win at Charlton.

The Canaries were relegated to League One by a 4-2 defeat at The Valley last May and their next visit there proved to be far happier once Michael Nelson had headed in a Simon Lappin corner in the 34th minute. Paul Lambert's side need just a point to clinch the title and will hope to do that at home to Gillingham on Saturday.

The Gills are the only side in League One yet to win a way this season but are a far more formidable at the Priestfield Stadium as second-placed Leeds found on Saturday. Looking to open up a four-point gap over Millwall in third, they found themselves 3-0 down after 33 minutes and despite a late fightback went down 3-2.

In League Two, Rochdale secured their first promotion in 41 years with a 1-0 win over Northampton at Spotland thanks to Chris O'Grady's 21st goal of the season. Notts County are also up after their 4-1 home win over Morecambe, Lee Hughes scoring twice for the Magpies whose season was turned round by the appointment of Steve Cotterill as manager in February following Sven Goran Eriksson's protracted departure. County play Rochdale tomorrow in a game which will go a long way to decide the title.

Heading up to League Two are Stevenage, who wrapped up the Blue Square Premier championship with a 2-0 win at Kidderminster, Charlie Griffin and Joel Byrom scoring for Graham Westley's side.

In the Championship, with Newcastle not playing until tonight's game at Plymouth, the rest of the top seven all won, with West Bromwich Albion's 2-0 victory over Middlesbrough ending the play-off hopes of Gordon Strachan's side. The Boro manager was livid and said: "I have been in management for 13 years and that is one of the performances that you are actually embarrassed with. Hopefully you don't get them too many times."

At the bottom, Crystal Palace picked up a precious point thanks to Stern John's late equaliser at Derby. The 1-1 draw helped keep Palace out of the bottom three but manager Paul Hart said: "On the strength of our performance in the second half, I thought we were unlucky not to win."