LONDON, CMC – Leyton Orient won promotion from England’s League Two on Tuesday night despite a 2-0 defeat at Gillingham and having Grenada defender Omar Beckles sent off after just 14 minutes at the MEMS Priestfield Stadium.
It was Beckles’ second red card this year. Bradford City’s 1-0 defeat at Swindon Town meant Orient were guaranteed a return to League One for the first time in eight years.
The 31-year-old was sent off for denying a goal-scoring chance, and from the resulting free-kick, Alex MacDonald found the bottom corner to put the Gills ahead.
Beckles, chair of England’s Professional Footballers’ Association, also saw red when he was sent off deep into stoppage time for an elbow on Aaron McGowan in a 1-0 defeat at Northampton Town in early January.
Gillingham’s second goal on Tuesday came via Cheye Alexander’s penalty 76 minutes after Idris El Mizouni was penalized for a handball following a MacDonald free-kick.
The game was halted by a floodlight failure with 12 minutes to go, but when the action resumed, Orient knew they had gone up after finding out the result at Swindon.
They are seven points clear of second-placed Northampton but crucially 13 ahead of sixth-placed Bradford, the only side who could mathematically stop them from making the top three.
Gillingham’s victory ensured they avoided relegation, with the two sides playing out time as they waited for the game to end.
In the same division, newly minted Spice Boy Myles Hippolyte, a 28-year-old winger, notched his fifth campaign goal when he scored for Stockport County in 31 minutes. Still, the visitors had to settle for a share of the spoils in a 2-2 draw at promotion rivals Carlisle United’s Brunton Park.
With three games to play, the two sides are locked on 72 points, four points outside the top three, and only three points above eighth-placed Mansfield Town.
In League One, Reggae Boy Jonson Clarke-Harris netted his 27th goal of the season as promotion-chasing Peterborough United, nicknamed Posh, moved up to fifth place after a 2-1 victory over relegation-threatened Accrington Stanley.
Posh lost their last game, but first-half goals from the 28-year-old Clarke-Harris and Ephron Mason-Clark sealed three points at the Wham Stadium despite a late Stanley fightback, which saw Sean McConville reduce the arrears on 87 minutes.
However, the Reds could not find a late leveler, and a third successive loss left them in 23rd place, three points from safety.
Simeon Jackson, the 36-year-old Jamaican-born forward who made 49 appearances for Canada, gave fourth-placed Chelmsford City a fifth-minute lead en route to a 2-1 win at Cheshunt in the sixth-tier National League South.
and then 